


A Single Chance at Happiness (Part 2)

by the3rdletter



Series: A Single Chance at Happiness [2]
Category: Pocket Mirror (Video Game)
Genre: Demons, Drama, Fantasy, Gen, Headology, Horror, Mystery, Other, Religion, Witchcraft, multiplepersonalitydisorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the3rdletter/pseuds/the3rdletter
Summary: This is a story of a little girl, who once before escaped her fate at the hands of a sealed bargain.This is a story of conflicting designs, of plans and plots put to the test.This is a story of the identity of mind, body and spirit.Amidst all these, this is a story about a single chance at happiness.





	A Single Chance at Happiness (Part 2)

**Author's Note:**

> Still may be subject to further editing, and is open to suggestions and feedback! Leave it on the source documents, linked here:  
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_udV1th01E9Pm-sWhCoqM50yeR54ub3I

Chapter 20

 

_ I’m sorry, Goldia… everything went gold and when you opened your eyes, she was already gone. _

_ Don’t worry, Lisette, you tried your best. Perhaps I never should have closed my- _

_ No. You needed to do something about it and you couldn’t do it with your eyes open. _

_ ….Well, what do we do now? _

But Lisette stopped thinking loud enough for Goldia to hear her over her own thoughts, and stopped.

Goldia was very conflicted. She was awake, and thinking like she was multiple people. In less than an hour, her sanity would be questioned. Was this a good idea?

But what had happened to Enjel? To find out, she needed to sleep, but she only had time for a quick nap, and she had to ask Fritz first. But while it was the middle of the day, and she was not feeling very tired, she’d grown good at falling asleep when she wanted to.

_ What’s going on inside my head, now that Enjel is back?  _ She worried. But now, her personalities could only communicate feelings once again. Whatever the witch’s presence had done to awaken their voices to her had left her, and she couldn’t find it again without sleep. She decided to head downstairs and tell Fritz she was going to have a quick rest before the court was back in session, so she could be ready for the test.

Goldia stood, exited the room, and started heading for the reception room once more.

She never opened any doors to rooms besides her own, but if she had, and the door wasn’t locked, she might have discovered a comatose, brown-haired little girl with eyes that were trying to recover their hazel color, lying under the covers of a bed in a room not far from where the Heir to Die Heilige had once been quartered.

When she arrived in the reception room she saw Fritz and Mr. Schneider in front of the secretary, her uncle asking the man if he could go upstairs to find his niece.

“She’s right there behind you,” the secretary said, spotting her over Fritz’s shoulder. “But if you want to go with her to where she went, I don’t see a problem with that.”

Fritz glanced over his shoulder and, seeing her there, thanked the secretary and turned to her, Schneider following him to where she was standing at the door to the 6th, 7th, and 8th wards. He spoke first.

“Well, Goldia, did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes, but…” she glanced at Mr. Schneider nervously, pausing.

“What’s wrong?” Fritz asked. “And don’t worry about him, he’s  our friend this time and we’re going to talk.” Schneider nodded.

“I see.” she gave a brief smile to him, then turned back to Fritz. “Is it alright if I take a quick rest before the court begins again?”

“You mean sleep?” her uncle asked, and she nodded. Fritz turned to glance at a clock behind the wall above the secretary’s head. They had a little less than an hour before 12:30 came around. He turned back to her.

“Well, if you think you can fall asleep in less than an hour and be ready as soon as I wake you up to run back to the court, then that’s fine.” he said.

“Alright.” she started to turn, but Fritz continued.

“And Mr. Schneider and I are going to come up with you, to a different room, and talk some things over.”

Goldia opened the door. “That’s fine. Please wake me up when it’s time.” and with that, they went down the hall and up the stairs to the 8th ward. Goldia went into her old room and, hesitantly, laid down on the familiar bed, her eyelids already drooping with a sudden drowsiness as she began to ask herself what her selves were doing.

Fritz and Thomas went to the room next door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it and entered. It had a very similar layout to Goldia’s but it had no mirror and there were two chairs instead of one. They sat across from each other in front of the dresser and began to talk as Goldia entered a surprisingly deep sleep.

 

The first thing Goldia saw was the red lamp, then the door in the stone wall by which it hung. She stepped over the red marble in front of her and put her hand on the knob, listening. She could hear confused but quiet chatter beyond the door. She quietly opened it and entered her small room.

The first thing she saw was Harpae’s back, standing over a bed of roses where someone she was blocking the view of was lying. She was also holding the damaged scythe against her chest. Lisette and Fleta stood side by side at the foot of the flowers. As Goldia walked closer, they all turned to face her and Harpae stepped aside, revealing Enjel lying on her back, contorted with pain that Goldia could feel a fraction of as she saw the leaking stub of her finger and the cuts and gashes in her shoulders, arms and back staining the roses even redder. Thankfully, these flowers had no thorns. Enjel’s dull golden eyes turned to Goldia’s. Everyone could hear the joy and relief that rushed through the heir to Die Heilige.

_ Enjel! Just when I’d had started to think I’m never see you again! _

_ Now we can finally share what your purpose is! _

_ And if we succeed today, I’ll have the Die Heilige family fortune to show you the world with. _

“Goldia…” she rasped. “You… you know?”

“Yes, my joy.” Goldia answered happily. “But first, what happened to you? What did she do to you?” Goldia’s voice was filled with concern. She turned to Harpae and held out her hands. “Give me that. She needs it.”

Everyone else’s eyes widened, especially Enjel’s, and Harpae took a step back. “Are… are you sure that’s a good idea?” she said.

“Harpae, I need you to listen right now.” Goldia said calmly. “Now please give me the scythe.”

Harpae, who was fueled by an uncertainty that was eating away at Goldia’s perspective of Enjel, shook her head. “But don’t you remember the poem? The warning?”

Enjel nearly missed her cue. “What… warning?” Enjel asked, flinching as she spoke. “What did it say?”

“Well, that speaks for itself.” Goldia answered Harpae. “Can’t you see? The witch is trying to turn me against her, which would be turning me against myself! Now give me that scythe and let me help her!”

Harpae couldn’t see their expressions, but she could tell how everyone was feeling. Fleta was confused, Lisette was unreadable, and Goldia herself was determined, but when she tried to read Enjel, all she felt was pain and… something else, something she couldn’t see through the fog of suffering.

“Harpae, what can she even do to hurt us?” Goldia called, interrupting Harpae’s thoughts. “Look at her! She needs help!”

“Just one moment!” Harpae clutched the scythe even tighter and tried one more time to penetrate the shroud Enjel had surrounded her emotions in. But all she found was… that Enjel didn’t seem to know either.

But then, while she’d been focusing, Goldia simply snatched the scythe out of Harpae’s hands. “Wait!” she pleaded. But Goldia ignored her and knelt down, gently laying the scythe in Enjel’s hands. Lisette and Harpae tensed, but Fleta just looked irritated by it.

“Oh come on.” she said, and everyone looked at her as absolutely nothing changed after Enjel had the thing. “You’re telling me you didn’t learn anything from the last time you tried to heal yourself in this way?” Fleta took out her little bell and pointed at it, frustrated at Goldia.

Goldia realized her mistake, but then she and Fleta both realized what she had done instead. Then, Harpae and Lisette quickly followed. Enjel said nothing, just moaned quietly as she grasped the scythe in her weak hands and turned to lay on her side facing it, closing her eyes.

“But…” Goldia stammered. But everyone could hear her thoughts.

_ But giving her her scythe back is one thing, but giving her my pocket mirror is another… _

_ And remember that you’re trying not to give the mirror any power any more. If you do that, for her….  _ Harpae thought.

_ Do it.  _ Lisette’s firm voice startled everyone, including, Harpae noticed, Enjel, who opened her eyes and looked straight at the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors in what looked very much like surprise.

Even Goldia looked unsure. “Do you trust her, Lisette?”

Lisette nodded immediately. Harpae shook her head.

“No!” Harpae answered. “This is a very poor time to do this! In less than an hour, Goldia’s sanity will be questioned. This is not the time to give the pocket mirror, which is only going to weaken us, and Enjel, who we don’t even know-”

“What did you say?” Goldia interrupted. Everyone, but especially Enjel, stared directly at Harpae, who stuttered.

“I… I just don’t... think… she can be trusted.”

“ **Well I’ll tell you what.** ” Goldia and Lisette spoke at the same time, their voices synchronizing as perfectly as their trains of thought. “ **It is high time I stop being so suspicious of someone who never suspected me until I stabbed them in the back, until I cast them from my mind and left them captive to the whims of my true enemy.** ”

Harpae took a step back, hers as well as Fleta’s and Enjel’s eyes wide at the two. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again.

“This isn’t a trick!” Goldia said, but Lisette did not. “Can’t you see what the witch did to her? There’s no way they’re on the same side, that she’s just been planted to foul me up at the most important moment!”

“Or it’s just a very good one!” Harpae replied, finally finding something to say.

“ **Harpae, stop.** ”

Harpae was clearly very distressed, and they would have been able to tell even if they couldn’t hear what she was thinking.

_ But why can’t we wait until after the examination? Why do we have to heal her now? _

**_Because if we wait until then, she might shatter or be permanently damaged. She’s getting weaker every minute, and if we don’t do something to heal her, she’ll be gone by then._ **

Harpae sighed.  _ Why do you trust her so much, Lisette? _

Lisette paused for a moment, glancing at Enjel. She crossed to Harpae behind Goldia, and, quietly as she could, answered Harpae.

Harpae’s eyes widened. She thought back, much more audibly.  _ Do you think- _

_ Hush!  _ Lisette cut her off quietly. Then she thought something else.

Harpae nodded.

Lisette raised her eyebrow, as if asking a follow-up question.

Harpae, not as good at concealing her thoughts from the others, had a few words of her answer overheard.

_ She… sn’t… m to… kn… at…. think anym… _

Lisette nodded.

“ **What are you both thinking?** ” Fleta and Goldia said at the same time. Enjel had tried to follow but started coughing.

“Lisette…” Harpae mumbled, then spoke clearly. “Lisette is right. Goldia, you need to use the pocket mirror to heal Enjel.” Enjel’s pain-ridden eyes widened in surprise, but only for a brief moment.

“Are you sure?” Goldia raised an eyebrow.

“ **Yes. We’re sure.** ” Harpae and Lisette said in unison.

Enjel’s eyes looked straight into Goldia’s as the girl reached into her pocket and withdrew the little mirror, opening it and laying it gently in the rose bed facing Enjel. But as Enjel slowly reached out her trembling hand to grip it, she saw something awful in the mirror.

She saw her first master, beckoning her hand to close around the mirror with flicks of his wand. She could almost see a glow from under his hair on his forehead as he grinned and silently urged her to take the mirror. Then she heard a voice in her mind.

_ Go on, my dear Enjel! Take it! _

_ What are you doing here?!  _ demanded Enjel, who had also grown very skilled at hiding her thoughts from those she shared a mind with.

_ Why, I’m here to help you!  _ He sniggered. _ Take the mirror, and don’t let her surprising sympathetic act make you forget how she cast you aside and will do it again before you know it! And before she tries to tell you you have a “role” in her, remember that you have a much bigger “role” for yourself! _

Enjel’s four-fingered, bleeding hand hesitated, almost to the mirror. But as she hesitated, Goldia did something that would change everything.

“Oh, I’m sorry, let me help you.” Goldia offered, and pushed the pocket mirror into Enjel’s hand for her. The Strange Boy’s face disappeared without, surprisingly, his hideous laugh from the glass as her trembling hand closed around it. Although it was quickly covered in blood, the little mirror began to glow.

  
  


Chapter 21

 

“Now, start at the beginning.” Fritz addressed Thomas as he took his seat.

“Oh, the beginning…”

“Yes. How did you meet Weber, and what do you know about him?”

“Well,” Thomas began, “I first met him about a month ago, and he’d already been working here for some time in this psychiatric ward. My sister had been committed to his care for a few weeks and I was coming in to check on her.”

“Was your sister legitimately insane?” Fritz asked.

“Yes, she is.” Thomas answered sadly. “Which is a true shame; she’s a wonderful person when she’s herself and not having an… outburst. I never wanted her to go to a hospital to address it, but nothing else was working and she kept getting worse the older she got, and so I sought help. They put her under Weber’s care and I planned to come back in a week to see how she improved.”

“What did you find?”

“That I hadn’t entrusted my sister to a doctor, I had entrusted her to a fanatic!” Thomas spat. “Exorcism, which is a fancy word for abuse in my experience, along with this strange medicine he made, was what my sister, under his “care”, had been put through before it came to my horrified attention. I gave him one warning and one warning only before I put a stop to it, and he didn’t budge. Arrogant dummkopf.”

“What did you do? Did you tell the court?”

“Well, at first I nearly did. But, you see, I knew it would make a huge mark on this hospital’s reputation. And I… felt I really owed it to them to handle it quietly.”

“Why?” Fritz inquired. “And what about Weber’s other victims?”

“To my knowledge, he didn’t treat any of his other patients like my sister.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not really sure. But it made it easier to get rid of him quietly, as no one else had any drama with Weber like I did and I wasn’t stiffing them of justice.”

“But still- why did you feel you ‘owed’ it to the hospital to handle it quietly? Men like Dr. Weber are dangerous, and if a hospital hires them…”

“I’m sure it was an innocent mistake, that they didn’t intend to hire such a monster.” Thomas answered. “And besides, they saved me from a terminal illness when I was finishing law school. I wouldn’t be alive right now if not for their excellent care.”

“How did you pay for it?” Fritz asked. “I thought hospitals and law school were expensive.”

“They are, but that’s where the debt comes in. You see, the hospital ended up paying for the last portion of my education due to an unfortunate technicality that rules that hospitals are responsible for paying for the schooling a student misses due to illness. Since I missed my last year of school when they treated me, they had to pay for it.” He paused, reflecting. “It’s really an absurd law at this point.”

“Agreed. But I admire your being so courteous to them for it.” Fritz said. Then he paused, thinking. “Why do you think your sister was so poorly treated compared to his other patients?”

“You know, I hadn’t really any clue why, even after what else I found out about him, until this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“A few days after I quietly brought it up with the director and got the doctor fired, and my sister released for now, I began to find difficulty sleeping.” He paused as Fritz raised an eyebrow. “Nightmares and visions, as I think you may have guessed. And they were awful.”

“What happened to you in them?”

Thomas hesitated. “I…”

“You…?” Fritz prompted.

“Do you believe in… demons?” Thomas asked, braced.

Fritz’s eyes widened. “You mean, a strange figure who haunts your mind, urging you to give up on yourself and those you love?”

Thomas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?! Has Goldia seen- have you seen him?”

“I have not, but Goldia certainly has. Did you see him? What did he tell you?”

“Why, he appeared to me the night Weber was fired!” Thomas was growing excited, visibly flooded with relief at being able to finally tell someone about this business. Fritz was equally glad.

“What did he say? Did he threaten you?”

“In effect, yes. In the middle of my sleep, he appeared to me, and-”

“What did he look like?” Fritz interrupted.

“He looked like a young boy, with pitch black skin and an unsettling, toothy grin.”

“What color were his eyes?”

“He... “ Thomas paused, remembering. “His eyes were hidden from me.”

Fritz sighed. “Oh well. What did he say?”

“He appeared to me, and warned me that I’d made a powerful enemy out of him. Confused, I asked why, and he simply replied that the only way to keep myself and my sister safe was to keep myself completely out of Weber’s path.”

“And that perfectly explains this morning.” Fritz remarked.

Thomas sighed regretfully. “Indeed it does. Sincerest apologies. At any rate, after he’d gone, I’d began to disregard his message. I was a lawyer. Weber was a despicable doctor. And as far as I knew, I’d had a bad dream. But then, the next few nights, dreams of my sister kept appearing to me, as if warning me.”

“What happened to you in them?”

“Oh, it didn’t happen to me. It happened to my sister.” Thomas explained. “I kept seeing Mia, my sister, rapidly changing personalities, mostly between some self-serving woman and herself. Sometimes she would run away and never come back. Other times she acted like a little child, always needy and selfish. But eventually, she acted normally. But when she did, yellow eyes started to hang in the air, following her around. Near the end of my dreams, she would turn a corner ahead of me, the eyes following her. When I would turn the corner after her, she would turn around, staring at me with the golden eyes, who had replaced her real ones, which I could see rolling away on the floor. She would then scream and cry out as she tried to tear out the intruders. I never knew what to do but run after her eyes which were rolling away. But as I would catch up to them, they would sink into a puddle which showed her face staring up at me, her eyes intact. She’d smile and rise out of the water in front of me, reaching out to me, trying to hug me.  ‘See? I’m okay, brother!’ she’d say with a disconcerting giggle. This went on for a few nights, and it disturbed me a great deal, especially since she was living with me in my home and I’d wake up to her after dreaming so worryingly of her.”

Fritz’s jaw had thoroughly dropped. “That’s…”

“What?”

“That’s exactly how I dreamed about my niece, the night after she had her first real… issue since I started taken care of her.”

“Oh that’s right, she has multiple personality disorder as well.” Thomas remembered.

“That’s the other thing: You said Weber was only predatory towards your sister in his practices, right?”

“Correct.”

“Did any of the other patients have multiple personality disorder?”

A pause.

“None of the other patients who were reassigned to new doctors had anything approaching what my sister has, including multiple personality disorder.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I checked out of curiosity when I realized Mia was the only one being targeted.”

_ That must be because Goldia wasn’t reassigned.  _ Fritz thought. But aloud he said:

“Well, it seems that we both have someone to protect, in the same way and from the same people.” Fritz concluded.

Thomas smiled. “Indeed it does. You know, Mr. Leidl, - ”

“Call me Fritz.”

“You know, Fritz,” Thomas recovered, “Your niece is very lucky to have you as an uncle.”

“Speaking of her,” Fritz began, “let’s start planning for the exam. You’re a lawyer - what kind of things should we expect and what should we know isn’t allowed?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Thomas replied. “Let’s get down to business.”

 

Chapter 22

 

Enjel relaxed all of her muscles that had been tensed with pain, except the ones in her fingers around the mirror, which clenched tighter than ever as her form regenerated. She’d been through this once before when the witch had healed her back and finger, but this time she was undergoing a lot more repair, ironically the damage done by the same witch.

Harpae watched with obvious nervousness. Lisette was the same unreadable mask. Fleta shared an expression with Harpae although Harpae couldn’t tell. Goldia sat, focused on the Cherubina of Shed Wings, and taking very deep breaths and closing her eyes from time to time as the pocket mirror restored her self’s health, and the blood  faded away from it.

Enjel’s injuries and wounds had not been faked or illusional, and her recovery was no less so. She’d taken a large risk, letting the witch inflict such devastating damage and entrusting herself to her very target. And it had worked splendidly so far. But there was one unexpected inconvenience.

Just as the pocket mirror had restored many, but far from all, of Fleta’s burnt memories, it gave Enjel a rush of memories Goldia had never yet shared with her, and it was the real reason she stayed laying on the floor with her golden eyes staring at the stone ceiling, processing it all, and not the flood of relief from the suffering. But while she was unfocused, her now five-fingered grip remained firm on the pocket mirror for several moments after it stopped healing her.

“Enjel, do you feel better now?” Goldia asked.

_ I could try to take it right now…  _ Enjel thought privately, not answering aloud. But then she saw everyone but Goldia herself’s gaze and knew that this wasn’t the right moment. She could hear the thoughts running through their minds.

_ Oh dear, please… please….  _ Coming from Harpae’s direction.

_ You better give it back right now, you better give it back right now…  _ from Fleta.

_ Any moment now.  _ Lisette thought. But what did that mean? Any moment now, she’d take the mirror, or any moment now, she’d give it back?

Enjel decided to make it the second one, and, releasing a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, lifted the pocket mirror with an open hand to Goldia.

“Thank you, Enjel.” Goldia took the mirror and pocketed it. “I knew I could trust you.” Giving Enjel her hand, she helped her to her feet. Enjel’s clean and healthy wings folded neatly out of sight.

The conniving feeling of power this sincere trust gave Enjel was initially pleasing to her. But when it made contact with the new set of memories and feelings in her, it grew sour.

“I need a moment to think…” she said, holding her hands to her head.

“Oh, that’s fine.” Goldia said.

“Speaking of which, why can’t we hear anything you’re thinking?” Fleta inquired. “Are you really that exhausted?”

Enjel faced the Lilliputian Princess, surprised by her new appearance. She hadn’t been able to see very well before being healed, and the teenage Fleta was something new. Her being annoying and proud, with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side as she awaited an answer, was not.

“Yes, actually, I am. What happened to you?” Enjel retorted.

“Fleta did some growing up while you were gone.” Goldia answered quickly.

Enjel shrugged, then closed her eyes. She stood there, letting the new information she was processing show so that they didn’t wonder what she was thinking, and took a good look at it as they all watched.

“Oh, I see you got-” Goldia began.

“Please, be quiet for a moment.” Enjel grunted.

“Sorry.”

Harpae and Fleta raised eyebrows at the angel’s belligerence. But everyone stopped to look at the memories flooding through Enjel’s mind, curious, in some instances morbidly.

Enjel experienced multiple birthdays, remembered a few childhood friends, some awkward conversations and encounters with adults, and boring days in school. But then the recollections grew darker. Birthdays were disasters, where people tried to celebrate a psychotic girl’s birthday and act like they were having a good time in front of her powerful parents. Her childhood friends disappeared. Encounters with adults were avoided by both her and the adults. And then one day in school, the teacher died. School ended early. And that day, pretenses and lies were challenged. But they were not removed; they were fortified in the face of that letter. It did a lot to introduce Enjel more fully to the person she had come from, and at one the worst stages of the plan.

While everyone was busy looking at the memories, Enjel was busy thinking about them in private. She’d never seen Goldia the same way she saw her now. Indeed, she was now more familiar with Goldia than any relationship between two different people. She was now struggling not to become the same person as her target, and had to put a stop to it.

So, as a countermeasure to maintain focus, she replaced many of them with memories borrowed from Charlotte’s life. Then, to add incentive, she visualized combining Charlotte’s body with Goldia’s wealth, and had her goal in focus once again.

“Enjel, we don’t need to think these…” Lisette’s voice broke through Enjel’s thoughts. She was right; the memories only got darker as Goldia got older. Enjel opened her eyes again and ceased dwelling on them for now.

“I’ll look at the rest later, then. For now, I have enough.” Enjel said.

“I’m glad you could see those! It really helps us reach equal footing.” Goldia said optimistically. Enjel did not return her smile.

“What’s even going on today that Harpae was so concerned about?” Enjel asked.

“Oh, just a court case trying to determine Goldia’s sanity.” Harpae replied.

Enjel looked surprised. “Oh... I have a lot to catch up on, I see.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Well,” she said, passing them and putting her hand on the door knob. “I’m going back to what’s left of my realm, and spending some time alone.”

“Oh, Enjel…” Goldia said sadly.

“What?” Enjel said as she held the door open.

“Your place is gone. It fell apart when you left.”

Enjel sighed. “Well, then, I’ll just have to make a new one, won’t I?”

Goldia brightened up. “Yes!”

Enjel closed the door behind her.

Goldia shrugged, all of her.

“I suppose it’s time to give her a minute alone.” she said, but only 2 of her meant. “We still have a little time left.”

 

Enjel was now much more alone with her thoughts, although not very. She sprouted her wings, and flew through the bright window to the northwest of the small marble puzzle courtyard. She landed in a wide, pitch black expanse of darkness. She looked around, and waved the scythe in commanding gestures.

Long, curving rows of yellow roses and candles appeared, forming a vast garden crisscrossed with rugged paths. The sky was filled with twinkling stars and a moon that smiled. The candles brightly lit everything while making the sky look very distant with its relative dimness. It was very much like a dim dream, and that’s exactly the effect Enjel had wanted. She sat down with her legs crossed on a circular glass mirror embedded in the ground, and closed her eyes.

In the glass below her, a reflection appeared. It was not her own. It belonged to the unnamed strange boy.

“So you followed me here?” Enjel asked, irritated.

“Yes, of course I did! Your friend asked me to be here to help you today, although in reality, I was here all along.”

Enjel, through some effort, stopped herself from jerking in surprise and shooting  a look down at his reflection below her.

_ How much does he know? _

“Oh, I know everything!” he laughed. Enjel was surprised he could hear her, but once again succeeded in not showing it.  After all, what were the odds of thinking something so close to him without him knowing, she thought as he continued.“I know how you and my witch plan to help me acquire what is rightfully mine today, and are very excited to be rewarded. And rewarded you shall be!” he laughed.

Enjel was hit with a wave of hidden relief. He didn’t know that she and the witch would do the rewarding.

“I know, you’re very excited to ride that carousel. And with your share of your treacherous master’s wealth, and with that well-earned  girl’s body, you’ll be able to do everything Goldia is too broken to truly offer.”

Enjel said nothing, just stared straight ahead.

_ This feels too much like before. You were going to betray me, why should this time be different? _

“I was going to betray you?” he said, hurt. “That’s rude of you to assume! It’s also false.”

“You were about to, at the most delicate stage of my last plan to get her-“

“You mean the visions, the attacks, the theatre?” He asked sardonically. “I was really only trying to help you. After all, didn’t you steal her little scythe and plant that poem for the same purpose? To scare and undermine her, even if it cryptically telegraphed your presence and intentions?”

Enjel sighed.

“Besides, didn’t Goldia betray you first?”

“First?” Enjel asked quickly, this time finally looking down at him as he looked up at her, his grin just as awful as she remembered.

“It’ll be but the first if you betray yourself today, is what I mean.” the thing said without missing a beat. “And I don’t mean betraying Goldia. That’s not really betraying yourself, is it? After all, you’re a different person. A real girl, remember?”

Enjel sighed. “Not yet.”

“Not yet.” he laughed.

A few moments of silent staring. Then, Enjel looked away from his face and into her fabricated sky.

“I know you’re struggling with the debilitating memories that cute little mirror gave you.” he said devilishly. Enjel did not turn her head. “But I’m also quite confident you will realize that no matter how well you know a person, and no matter how well they may know you, that if you live together long enough they will stab you in the back. Might as well be the first to do so, no?”

Enjel did indeed know that. A quote the witch had once said which was something she had never forgotten crossed her mind, in full view of her architect.

_ “Knowing more about someone should never give them power over you, only power for you over them. Remember that.” _

“Hehe, I told her that.” the strange boy chuckled. “For such a long time, she’s been such a wonderful ally. Perhaps, after you see what I can give my own, you will too.”

Enjel firmly shook her head at that. “This plan is the last time you should expect to hear from me again.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be the last time you should expect to hear from me.”

  
  


Chapter 23

 

_ But, Lisette… _

_ What? _

_ She needs a minute… _

_ We don’t have a minute. You need to tell her right now, or it’ll be too late and there will be needless confusion at the worst possible time. Go, now! _

_ Alright… _

_ And don’t worry. I’ll be watching. _

_ Thank you Lisette. You always are. _

“Hey, Enjel…”

Enjel did not succeed this time in hiding her surprise at the unexpected voice. She jerked upright, onto her feet, and the figure in the glass below her disappeared with a silent grin. She turned around and saw Goldia standing in the yellow roses.

“What?” she asked, failing to keep the annoyance out of her voice at being disturbed.

Goldia frowned. “We have little time, and I need to tell you something I should’ve known before I lost you.”

Enjel raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“I found your place in Goldia’s mind.” Enjel was clearly listening, but her tense body language didn’t change much. “You’re my strongest determination, my cunning, and most importantly, made from my will to live.”

Enjel’s eyes widened. It made sense, but it didn’t make sense. She was determined, but… wasn’t Goldia without her? Wasn’t that how Goldia had beaten her to the mirror and talked her off the ledge in the first place? She was cunning, but did that really fit anywhere in Goldia’s personality? Enjel especially had a hard time recognizing any major shrewdness or guile in Goldia’s life after seeing all those memories. Lastly, the most important thing: Made from her will to live.

_ That’s nice,  _ Enjel thought.  _ But don’t you have plenty without me? _

Goldia heard her. “I’ve had to draw from other sources, but....”

“So what do you need me for? What have you ever needed me for?” Enjel said. Enjel was determined, all right, but right now her determination was pointing the wrong way. Her grip tightened on the scythe as she struggled with the new worm of doubt in her.

“Enjel! Calm down.” Goldia raised her hands. “You’re not going to attack me, are you?”

_ You’re going to have to, if you keep letting her shake you like this!  _ Enjel heard a devilish voice in her head.  _ Go on! She’ll be awake again in a few moments, and if you don’t move now, you’ll have a much more difficult job in front of you! _

Enjel lifted the scythe in both hands, and took a step toward Goldia, who took a step back. “I need the pocket mirror. I need to know what happened while I was gone.”

“You don’t need the mirror for that, I can just tell-”

“Goldia, it’s nearly time to go!” came a voice from the sky. It was uncle Fritz’s voice. He was trying to wake her up!

“You don’t have time to tell me anything, just give it to me and it will tell me!” Enjel demanded, advancing. But Goldia did not step back any further. She planted her feet and hung her head so Enjel couldn’t see her face. But Enjel could see the golden tear that fell to the ground.

When Goldia looked up again, her eyes were purple. Her skin and hair were pale as snow, and her pocket mirror  dangled from a belt buckle on the Sleeping Maiden of Horror’s waist as she drew a pristine, golden pair of scissors in one hand, a dirty, damaged pair in the other. Her face was a frown.

“Where is Goldia?” Enjel demanded, not noticing how the little drop of gold was slowly making its way across the carpeted ground towards her.

“We’re awake.” Lisette responded evenly, not changing her expression. “And I can answer your questions for her. I  _ am  _ her.”

Enjel looked at her scythe, then back to Lisette, glancing at the golden mirror on her belt. “Give me that; it can answer my questions the best.”

“Give you what?” Lisette asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The pocket mirror!” Enjel shouted, frustrated.

“What makes you think this can answer your questions?” Lisette tapped the mirror with Schnee Shcere. “What makes you think this can do anything for you?” Then, Lisette gestured to the little golden tear, which was nearly to Enjel. “That’s what you need.”

Enjel took several steps back as the drop moved closer and she heard a voice in her head.

_ Back away from that! It’s a trap; if it touches you, there will be no Enjel! _

“Enough!” Enjel brought up her scythe, sprouted her wings, and charged, jumping over the tear on the ground, which sunk into the carpet as she passed it, staining the fabric a brilliant gold. Engel Sense and Schnee Schere clashed in a beautiful tinging sound, like the fine blades they were, signalling the first of many blows.

The world around them changed. Enjel’s dim garden melded with Lisette’s oubliette. Stars gleamed through cracks in the stone ceiling, and yellow roses threaded through the cracks in the wood floor, thorns strong but flowers wilting.

 

Goldia opened her red eyes and saw Fritz’s face. She blinked a few times and sat up.

“Come now, Goldia.” He urged. “It’s time to go.”

“Alright…” she held her hands to her forehead.

“ _ Are  _  you alright?” Fritz asked. “Come on, you have a very easy test in front of you, and then your uncle Oswald will look like the idiot he is, as well as that monster, Weber. You’ll be safe. You’re wealth will be safe. We’ll all be safe.”

Goldia nodded and stood up. Her heart was pounding and her mind was racing against itself, but they joined Thomas in the hallway and set out to leave the hospital.

 

Lisette dodged out of range of a viscous slice the scythe made through the air. Enjel stopped, panting a bit as Lisette stood back, watching her with her scissors held up.

“Who is Weber?” Enjel asked, recovering from her initial volley of blows meant to end the fight quickly. But Lisette had masterfully weaved and parried her way through it.

“He is a doctor.” Lisette answered. “Or rather, an exorcist. He tried to keep Goldia in the hospital because he believed she was possessed by demons.”

“Well, in a way, he was right.” Enjel said with a smirk.

_ Roger Weber is an ally of yours, and a servant of mine.  _ The Strange Boy explained.  _ He’s going to show the court that she doesn’t have the capacity to inherit, and will secure her wealth for you. _

Enjel drew herself up again, having recovered her breath for the most part. “What about that man with Fritz?”

“His name is Thomas, and he’s our lawyer.” Lisette explained. “He is an ally of yours, and a servant of justice. He’s going to show the court that Goldia’s sanity is unquestionable and that she has the capacity to inherit. He’s going to secure her wealth for you.”

_ He’s a threat, and he will be dealt with by Weber.  _ The Boy’s voice told her.

“He’s an ally, and he will deal with Weber.” Lisette answered, as if hearing him. What she said next removed all doubt. “And get that monster out of your head; he’s clouding your judgement and he’s very bad at hiding from me.”

Enjel recoiled in shock. She could feel someone else do the same thing to a much smaller extent in her head.

_ Clever.  _ The Strange Boy said.  _ Very clever.   _ His next words could be heard aloud.

“Farewell, Enjel. Don’t you worry. Remember, this won’t be the last time you should expect to hear from me!” and with a poof of stars around the Cherubina of Shed Wings’s head, he was gone.

Enjel paused for a moment, thinking. The memories of the last few weeks, which she had been absent for, flashed through her head. The Strange Boy must have been blocking them.

But all she saw was all of Goldia’s selves moving on and trying to forget her as fast as possible, and right after they had obviously conspired against her. No one else had been taken by Platinum. In fact, Fleta had  _ grown up _ . They sickened her. Until they received that poem. The look on their faces was very satisfying to recollect, and she was very grateful to herself for thinking to have the witch plant it. But not Lisette’s face. Lisette had just been expressionless, and it made Enjel angry. She brought up her scythe and attacked the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors once more as Goldia exited the hospital with her two protectors.

 

Goldia’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding, even though she was just walking through the streets to the court with the two people she trusted the most.

_ Hold on, Goldia… Hold on... _

 

“How- Dare- You- Cast me aside!” Enjel shouted, swinging her scythe wide with each word.

“Do you even know who Platinum was?” Lisette shot back, having effortlessly dodged the sloppy swinging.

“It was Goldia, too afraid to do it to me without putting on that ridiculous disguise!”

Lisette frowned. “Who told you that?”

“The witch you’re so scared of did. The witch who saved me and healed me!”

“She saved you from herself.”

“What does that mean?”

“While it’s true that Goldia was Platinum, what she didn’t tell you is far more important.”

“What?”

“Platinum is what happens when Goldia hands control to someone else, or no one at all. Do you know who that certain someone was?”

“You?” Enjel spat, although she was fairly certain she knew what Lisette was about to say.

“Your new friend, the witch.” Lisette answered.

“Lies! If it was her, how did you get her out?”

Lisette was just about to say, “I took the Pocket Mirror from her”, but while that’s what she’d thought at the time, she realized now that wasn’t true. So instead, she gave the real answer:

“I took away her permission to be in here.”

“Permission? Then why aren’t you simply doing the same to me?” Enjel demanded.

“Because you’re no outsider.” Lisette said immediately. “You are Goldia.”

Enjel roared and Lisette jumped back as Engel Sense slashed through the air once again. On the ground, the drop of gold collected in a small crack in the rotting wood.

 

Chapter 24

 

Goldia, her uncle and her lawyer entered the courthouse. Thomas went to arrange some things for them while she and Fritz headed for their defendant seats.

In the crowd, a woman who had left her straw hat at home but not her basket was seated towards the back of the room, concentrating.

The court was about to resume.

 

“Enjel, stop!” Lisette shouted as she blocked another attack. “Goldia needs to focus right now!”

“This is my chance!” Enjel yelled back, continuing her assault. “My single chance at happiness!”

“And you’re throwing it away!”

“By struggling to be free of Goldia, who betrayed me? By becoming independent?!”

“By betraying yourself to the designs of a being who has no place in this world and eats his way into it!”

“He never stabbed me in the back, never threw me away like some toy he’d gotten bored of!”

“That was the witch!”

“Who had permission from YOU!”

Now Lisette was starting to grow genuinely angry. “I was the one who cast her out! If I’d been faster, I could have saved you!”

“But you DIDN’T!” Enjel lashed out with a kick which Lisette narrowly dodged.

Lisette saw the big opening Enjel’s misplaced foot offered and sighed internally.  _ My, this fight would’ve been over so long ago if I was trying to hurt her… _

“You ARE trying to hurt me!” Enjel brought her other foot around for another blow. Lisette dodged, but it had been a feint; the real danger came from the other direction in the form of the wicked curved blade arcing towards her. Lisette brought up her scissors just in time, but they were knocked out of her hands and a short distance away, stabbing into the wood floor with a thud.

Enjel flashed a smirk and brought her weapon back around to cleave the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors in two, but the blade hit nothing. Lisette had disappeared, and reappeared by Shnee Schere. She pulled it from the wood planks and drew another pair of rusty ones. But as she turned to face Enjel again, a flicker of fog tainted her face as she saw the golden-eyed girl smirk again.

_ Don’t lose control now. You’ve had it for so long, and you don’t want to make reflections… _

“Why not, Lisette? Don’t you want to win?” Enjel said. “You can’t win if you don’t attack.”

_ There’ll be no winning from splitting apart and destroying you…  _ Lisette thought.

“There’ll be no winning for you if you let me cut you down!”

“ENOUGH!” Lisette thundered. Cracks and splinters appeared in the floor and ceiling. Roses and little bits of debris fell through them as Enjel struggled to maintain her footing.

 

Harpae stood at the gate to Goldia’s mind. It was the only one, symbolically, because there was only one way into Goldia’s mind now: Permission. This was that way in, and for now, she had been entrusted with it. Outside the gate, there stretched a vast black expanse of nothingness in every direction. Behind the gate was the Heir to Die Heilige’s mind. Atop the stone wall the gate was in, with a row of toy soldiers, stood the Lilliputian Princess. And in the gate, stood the Maiden of Pristine Eyes, listening.

Then, in the distance, there appeared a figure. A woman, Fleta discerned as she drew closer. A woman with eyes that were terrifyingly familiar to her. The last time she’d seen those eyes had been just before a brutal blast of fire, where they’d shown no emotion, offered no explanation, no mercy. Fleta clenched her fist and raised it to the side of her head. The soldiers raised their firearms and pointed forward.

_ It’s the witch. She’s walking towards the gate.  _ Fleta thought to Harpae.

_ I know, I can hear her. _

The witch moved as if she didn’t care the guns were there. She drew closer and closer, her footsteps echoing as if they were in a corridor, until she stood right before the Maiden of Pristine Eyes.

“ **I know why you’re here.** ” Harpae and Fleta said simultaneously.

The witch nodded. “May I see my Enjel?”

The two shook their heads. “ **Goldia is focusing right now.** ”

“I’m aware. I’m here to help one of her do that.”

“ **No.** ”

The witch’s expression didn’t change. She took a few steps back, and bowed her head.

 

“You’re losing, Enjel.” Lisette said after a few moments, after the ground had stopped shaking. “You’re fighting yourself and one of you will lose.”

“How can I be losing if I can live without Goldia, stop being one of her?” Enjel replied stubbornly.

“Which is…?” Lisette gestured vaguely.

Enjel opened her mouth to reply, but stopped. Her thoughts betrayed her plan anyways.

_ I’ve found another girl to live as. _

“Who?” Lisette asked, then realized. “Charlotte.”

Enjel nodded. “She’s been much more hospitable.”

“You mean she’s a good thrall.” Lisette replied.

“I’ll be no thrall of Goldia’s!” Enjel shouted.

“You’ll not be enthralled!” Lisette shouted back.  “Look at me! Look at any of us! We’re no slaves..”

Enjel was about to say something, but stopped. She held up a hand to Lisette. She could hear something. Someone trying to tell her something, trying to think her something. She lowered her scythe and listened for it. Lisette started listening too.

_ Enj- hel- get in- tuck- the gate- a gir- ue eyes- in the wa- _

It was the witch’s voice, broken up by something.

**_Harpae_ ** _.  _ They both thought simultaneously.

Lisette remembered Harpae, at the gate to Goldia’s consciousness, standing her ground with Fleta behind her. She was in trouble.

The two combatants’ eyes widened, but for very different reasons. Enjel turned and ran in the opposite direction, spreading her wings and bringing up her scythe to slice through the wall. Swinging it, she flew straight through the hole. It flashed white as she passed through it and she vanished. Lisette shot after her, her control over the situation truly challenged for the first time. As she leapt through the window after her, the solitary tear seeped into the wood, heading downward.

 

The sound of the gavel hitting the podium startled Goldia, who looked up in surprise around the courtroom, finally taking it in after a few minutes of hubbub.

Judge Wagner was back behind his stand with his gavel, reclaiming order. Fritz and Thomas were seated to her side, glancing around the room. Oswald was over at his table, surrounded by the same people, including Dr. Weber. But Oswald looked very unsettled, like someone whose plan had gotten out of their control. Weber, on the other hand, looked much the opposite. He sat up straight, with his hands together on the table in front of him. His green eyes were almost completely closed, and stared at the wall across from him. He looked very focused yet unfocused, engaged yet distant. She hoped it didn’t have to do with her, but was fairly sure it did.

What Goldia didn’t see, however, was the young-looking woman at the back of the audience, who had left her hat at home but had her basket in her lap. If anyone had looked at her, they would’ve seen much the same thing as if they had looked closely at Weber.

Wagner coughed once as the chatter died down. Then, clearing his throat, he began.

“This court is now in session. First, we will hear once more from the prosecution, then the defense, and finally,a test of the defendant, Goldia Die Heilige’s mental health  will be conducted. The court will then give its verdict, and we will adjourn.” He nodded to Weber, who exited his strange state startlingly smoothly.

“The prosecution has no further arguments, your honor, and awaits the results of the test as the verdict.”

“Very well.” Wagner said, ignoring Oswald’s worried sigh. He turned to Mr. Schneider and Leidl. “Mr. Schneider. You were assigned Fritz’s lawyer this morning, correct?”

Thomas nodded. “Yes, your honor.”

“You seek to take on the role now?” the judge asked.

“Yes, your honor. I would also like to apologize to the defense and to the court for my inexcusable absence.” Thomas’s eyes never left Wagner’s.

“Mr. Leidl, do you hold any complaint against this?”

“No, your honor.” Fritz answered immediately.

“Very well. Mr. Schneider, please proceed.”

“Thank you, your honor.” Thomas took a sheet of paper with a list on it from Fritz, and, glancing occasionally at the prosecution but trying not to glance at the prosecution, especially Weber, he began to read it.

“Your honor, I would like to lay down the conditions the court has for this examination. Firstly, it shall be the standard test written by and for the law and the interpretation thereof. Questions will not be subtracted, added, abridged, lengthened or reworded in any way. Secondly, the test will be administered by a doctor hired by the court, and not by the prosecution or defense. And finally, the test will be given, answered and evaluated in this court, before the audience, judge, defense and prosecution.”

Wagner, Weber, Oswald, Fritz, and after a few moments, Goldia nodded, as well as several people at Oswald’s table.

“Very well. The court will now call forth one of its doctors.”

 

Weber was watching very carefully, fidgeting by spinning the rosary on his wrist, as the witch waited just outside the gate. He was in one of the most vulnerable positions a man like him can be in: Alone with his thoughts, but not alone with his thoughts, and having nothing to really do, no action to take at the moment. Even worse, shortly he might have to do something. But as merciless as a man like him’s memories could be to him, he’d grown even more so towards them, justifying or deleting them. He was very good at justifying many, and the few that he couldn’t had long ago learned to simply disappear. And he needed that skill, especially when in the presence of this particular witch.

He observed the young girl with a pink dress and a bonnet on her head, with eyes far greener than his and blonde hair. She was ready to order her squadron of soldiers to fire, and cast the witch out of their mind, and was looking to be about to do so. His gaze turned to the young lady in the gate, her eyes blue and, even from this distance, clearly blind. He shuddered. She could be a problem; blind people were so much harder to fool.

But his worries were put to rest when he saw her cry out in pain as the point of a scythe emerged from her abdomen. The soldiers fired, but Goldia’s little angel, whose flying had subverted the need for footsteps and taken the blind girl by surprise, had already welcomed the witch into her mind.

Chapter 25

 

Thomas, Fritz, Wagner and Oswald observed with similar anticipation as the Heir to Die Heilige answered the first basic questions for the first time.

“What is your full name?” The doctor asked.

“My name is Goldia Die Heilige.” Goldia answered, her hand involuntarily jerking to feel her stomach.

The doctor noticed but moved on. “What is your mother’s name?”

“Elise Leidl Die Heilige.” Goldia’s hand stayed put, but relaxed a little.

“Father’s?”

“Roman Per Die Heilige.”

“Brother’s?”

“Henri Die Heilige.”

“Sister’s?”

Goldia paused. “I don’t have a sister.”

The doctor looked at his notes and nodded approvingly.

 

As the guns sounded and Harpae sank to her knees, holding a hand to the new opening below her ribcage, Enjel was flooded with a sense of victory. As the witch drew near, into the blind spot of the soldiers, Enjel smiled at her ally. But then, Harpae’s blind eyes on her surprised face turned to face her, and all the memories of the kind young lady Enjel had recently acquired rapidly disintegrated all of her triumph into a shaking feeling of betrayal. Perhaps what devastated Enjel the most was the lack of anger or disgust on the Maiden of Pristine Eyes’s face. There was only pain and confusion in those blind, blue eyes.

“My girl… what have you done to me?” A drop of blood appeared at the corner of Harpae’s mouth as she spoke. And with that, the view Enjel had entertained the last few weeks of herself and Goldia being somehow separable was shaken, cracks spiderwebbing through its false foundation. Charlotte disappeared from Enjel’s mind for a moment as the memories from Goldia’s fateful journey poured in. Looking around, Enjel saw herself holding scissors, a hairbrush, a bell, and most prominently, a pocket mirror. A real one.

_ Why am I feeling this way?! I’m not Goldia!  _ Enjel told herself.

“Because the Pocket Mirror has poisoned your mind with her memories.” The witch said simply, lightly stepping over Harpae as the girl struggled to avoid crumpling to the ground altogether.

For the first time in a long time, and in the face of this new perspective Goldia had given Enjel, what the witch said felt fundamentally wrong.  _ Poisoned? _

“NO!” Lisette’s enraged voice startled Enjel, and the Cherubina of Shed Wings spun around, holding up a hand to protect herself. Schnee Schere, which had been pointed at her scythe in an attempt to disarm her, cleanly removed Enjel’s forefinger instead.

 

Goldia’s other hand twitched as the forefinger had a momentary shiver under the table.

“What time is it?” the doctor asked.

“12:45 PM.” Goldia answered, looking at the clock. The doctor nodded.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four.” Goldia said through her teeth as her finger started screaming in pain at the joint.

“What?” The doctor asked.

“Fi- four.” Goldia corrected herself. She felt a stare burning into the side of her head facing the prosecution, as defendants often do. She shot a glance that turned into a glare when she saw Weber in his strange gazing state.

_ Get out and stay out.  _ She thought as forcefully as she could.

Weber visibly flinched. Enjel hadn’t let  _ him  _ in. Looking slightly annoyed, he returned his focus to the room he was in, and Goldia felt a weight lift from her head.

 

Enjel didn’t even feel any pain as her finger flew off her hand, falling to the floor with too little noise to hear. She was too full of adrenaline, very confused adrenaline, that didn’t know what it was doing any more. She and the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors took several steps back from each other, staring into each other’s, and therefore their own, eyes. Enjel looked into Lisette’s foggy eyes and saw all the anger she’d taunted out of her, all the self-control that was barely keeping itself from destroying the Cherubina of Shed Wings. Lisette looked into Enjel’s eyes and saw just what she’d seen when the girl had been lying on her back in relief as the pocket mirror regenerated her: genuine surprise and a shaky objective.

The witch saw this as well. “Enjel, remember what I told you.”

_ Knowing more about someone should never give them power over you, only power for you over them.   _ Enjel thought. She heard Harpae cough up blood behind her.  _ But should you really use that power to hurt them? _

Fleta, leaning over the crenellation above them all, couldn’t use her soldiers. There was a three out of four chance she’d hit herself. But there was something she could do for Enjel, and she did it as Enjel looked into the witch’s golden eyes once more. She shared a memory.

As Enjel and the witch made eye contact and Enjel made her query, Enjel saw exactly what Fleta had seen weeks ago, in the golden eyes of Platinum. But even more than that, Enjel realized she was looking at what she had seen weeks ago, on the face of the same ruthless Platinum.

_ So it had been you…  _ Enjel thought, oblivious to her bleeding finger. Fleta sighed with relief and started down the steps to Harpae’s weak form as the witch’s face visibly darkened.

“You really should decide if you’re seeking your happiness or Goldia’s, my girl. This is my and your single chance at happiness, and I thought you were my ally in getting Goldia out of the way.”

“But…”Enjel stammered. She thought of Harpae’s eyes and the way she had addressed her as if Enjel had been Goldia. She remembered how hard Lisette was trying not to hurt her, and she remembered Goldia’s sincere concern when she’d been thrust back into her mind, badly injured. Now, she saw Fleta looking hopefully at her, as she cared for the fallen Maiden of Pristine Eyes, hope in her eyes.

_ I’ve… betrayed myself…  _ Enjel’s eyes widened.

“You will if you continue down the track your mind is foolishly walking.” The witch cautioned.

Enjel looked into the eyes of Goldia, each of her, one by one. Harpae’s were still a dazed blue. Lisette’s were an unsteady, angry, but tentatively hopeful stare, darting between her and the witch. But Fleta’s were looking straight at her, and they clearly conveyed the emotion Lisette had been trying to the entire time.

_ Please, Goldia needs you. _

But all of their eyes showed one very important thing Enjel was looking for: Goldia was her single chance at happiness.

Enjel slowly gripped the scythe with both hands, flinching as her missing finger’s stub dribbled blood on the handle. She lifted it, and met the witch’s golden eyes with her own eyes of the same hue. Lisette’s and Fleta’s eyes widened.

“Goldia needs me.” she said simply.

“You need you.” the witch replied.

“Exactly.”

“So be it.” and with that, and with startling speed after she dropped her basket, the witch brought up one hand with her palm open and an infernal blast struck the Cherubina of Shed Wings away and to the ground, her scythe clattering to her side as scorched and burned as she was.

Goldia convulsed and gasped in pain her body did not feel. It was a strange sensation, and an even stranger sight. The doctor stopped in the middle of whatever question he’d been asking.

“Are… you alright, miss?” he asked. Oswald was watching like a hawk, but Goldia ignored him.

“I’m fine.” she answered immediately, trying to pay no attention to the light sting in her abdomen and fingerjoint, and the slight tingling her entire body felt now. But what she did pay attention to was the new sense of completion she hadn’t felt since the moment Enjel had first given her Engel Sense, even if it had been accompanied by such a burst of pain.

The doctor moved on. “Alright. We’re getting to the end of the first test. Remember, the next test is the same, it’s just so we know your answers haven’t changed-”

“We know, we know.” Thomas cut him off. “Carry on, doctor.”

“Very well.”

 

Enjel, through eyes that she could barely get to open the crisp eyelids of, saw the witch turn to Lisette and fire at her as well. But Lisette dodged out of the way and charged, throwing her scissors for the witch to catch with her head. But the scissors melted before they reached the witch, and all that hit her fair skin was ash. Lisette tackled the witch, landing atop her and raising Schnee Schere in both hands to stab her, but the witch quickly gripped both her wrists and squeezed. Lisette yelled out a yell as smoke curled from the witch’s grip and her wrists burned. The witch yanked her hands and threw Lisette on the ground, sending Schnee Schere rolling away farther than her. The witch stood faster than Lisette and blasted Lisette off her feet the moment the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors regained them, sending her tumbling away, the pocket mirror on her belt ringing and banging against the ground as she rolled to a stop. The witch started slowly advancing on the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors, who tried and failed to stand up.

_ This is it. I’ve failed you, Goldia. We’ve failed you.  _ Everyone heard Lisette think hopelessly.

Fleta sunk to Harpae’s side, tears starting to silently flow down her soft cheeks. Harpae closed her eyes and frowned, lying down all the way and resting her hand which had been supporting her.

_ We’ve failed… even with Enjel, we couldn’t stop her…  _ they both thought.

But, as the witch was almost to Lisette, a single golden tear fell and landed in front of Enjel, just within her reach. The words of her first master flashed through her mind.

_ “Back away from that! It’s a trap; if it touches you, there will be no Enjel!” _

She scoffed at him internally.  _ There’ll be no more puppet of yours. _

Then, Enjel slowly extended a trembling, scorched hand to touch it, whispering.

“A drop of gold as the means to collect the most amazing deed…”

Her hand closed around it, and she felt Goldia’s love flow into her hand and into the rest of her.

“Gleaming desire for a chance at happiness.”

Enjel’s own eyes filled with tears of joy. She had found her place. They needed her, Goldia needed her, and she needed her now. As the tears flooded down her face, they cleansed the chars and burns, restored the scorched flesh and repaired her damaged scythe.

“Decisive gestures made in seemingly fragile steps.”

Enjel grunted and slowly raised herself to her feet, leaning on her scythe for support.

“An ephemeral golden mirage…” Enjel stood on her feet, and met the witch’s eyes as she turned around.

“Accompanied by the purest, blinding will to live.”

 

“Fritz Leidl is my-” Goldia paused, holding still.

“Is your…?” the doctor prompted.

Goldia felt a wave of relief wash over her. She knew she could trust Enjel.

“My uncle.” she finished, relaxing visibly.

 

The witch and the Cherubina of Shed Wings held equally golden eye contact for several seconds, before the witch broke it and turned back to Lisette, who was glaring up at her with renewed confidence.

_ Give it to me. Now.  _ The witch reached down and lifted Lisette by her collar, and used her other hand to pluck the scratched-up pocket mirror off her belt. Enjel rushed to stop her, swinging her scythe in a downward swipe as she leapt into the air. But her scythe got nothing but air, as the witch was no longer there. Lisette fell to the ground heavily. Enjel’s head spun around to where the witch had reappeared next to her basket. 

Enjel started to charge, and the witch knew her time was running out. She had to do it now, before Goldia cast her out. She dodged out of the way as the angel’s scythe cut through the air at her. As Enjel turned around, she held up the mirror, opening it out of curiosity. She saw nothing in the glass _. _

_ She sees nothing, because there is nothing.  _ Lisette thought, inaudible to the intruder.  _ Let her learn that, Enjel. _

Enjel stopped after turning to face the witch again, confused but willing to trust Lisette.

“This symbol, this weakness of yours.” the witch spoke. “It served as a sort of crutch for your sanity during your stay in that hospital. But now it has doomed you.” and with that, the witch brought up her hand and threw the mirror into the ground.

Enjel, Lisette, Harpae (in a different way)  and Fleta all watched in anticipation as the little mirror shattered into hundreds of little pieces of glass and gold that scattered every which way with a hollow smashing sound. Everyone waited for several moments. Enjel was full of shock, and didn’t understand why nothing was happening. She was not alone in this, and the witch made the first uncertain face anyone had ever seen her make in over a century. Everyone could hear what she was thinking.

_ How? I broke it. I broke you. I shattered your pocket mirror, your keystone, your regalia. Why don’t you collapse, Goldia? _

“ **The power they have can be measured by and equated to the power you grant it.** ”

The witch’s confused look grew more pronounced. “What are you saying?”

“Goldia didn’t need it anymore.” Lisette slowly stood up. “So she decided to stop granting it so much power after the first time you tried to hurt her with it. Now, she needs no regalia, just like most real people.”

“Then where did it go?”

“Where did what go?”

“Where did all the power go?”

“Into me. Into each of us.” As Lisette spoke, the burns on her wrists and face slowly vanished, the hole in Harpae’s abdomen sealed, and Enjel’s finger grew back.

The witch looked down at the basket on the ground.

“You mean…” the witch opened and extended her hand. A wand, the wand she’d spent nearly all her life bound to, flew out and into her palm, and she gripped it.

_ All my life, this… thing… has only been as powerful as I allowed it to be? _

“How did you get it?” Enjel asked. “You never told me.”

The witch shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you, Goldia, for all you have taught me. You truly were my, as well as Enjel’s, single chance at happiness.”

_ And Enjel, I will take care of Charlotte. Don’t follow me. Forget I existed. _

Enjel hesitated, then, starting with her, Goldia thought:  **_I trust you._ **

The witch took the wand in both hands and brought it down on her knee, snapping the small stick in two. Everyone flinched, but not her. The witch slowly turned to glass and shattered, leaving behind a heap of shards more scattered than the pocket mirror’s, each and every piece devoid of reflections.

 

The witch jerked upright in her seat at the back of the courtroom. Recovering, she grabbed her basket and quickly stood and left the room. She swiftly left the building.

Weber, for his part, was left utterly baffled.  _ Where’d she go? Goldia’s still answering the questions, and isn’t getting any of them wrong! _

Weber didn’t know what to do. The witch, their only way into Goldia’s mind, had just abandoned him. This couldn’t be happening. He clutched his rosary tightly, and twisted it upside down, his gaze turning to Goldia, who had brightened up considerably after the witch had left.

_ Master, what do I do? _

No response.

_ Master? _

There was still nothing. The doctor decided to try taking matters the witch had left lying around into his own hands. His eyes grew unfocused yet focused, relaxed yet engaged.

 

For a brief moment, he could see the gate. But as he slowly approached it, guns sounded, spraying up earth as the bullets landed all around him. But he trudged on, the hail of inaccurate bullets no deterrent. He had to do something.

But as he drew closer, a girl in a black skirt with a white blouse and sharp, golden eyes appeared in the gate, walking slowly towards him, her long black hair flowing out behind her and her menacing scythe at her side.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the young girl interrupted him.

“Leave, stranger.”

“Wait, I think you misunderstand. I’m doctor Weber-”

Enjel’s wings sprouted threateningly and her eyes narrowed. She wrapped her ten fingers around the scythe handle, and pointed it at him.

Weber brought up his hand, opening the palm. But before he could muster a spark of fire, the girl leapt in front of him and there was a sickly cutting sound as she brought down her scythe.

Looking down, Weber saw his hand fall from his wrist. She had barely missed his rosary. He looked back up at Enjel in shock, and vanished.

Harpae, having heard everything, stepped out of the gate and put a hand on Enjel’s shoulder.

“Enjel…” she said.

Enjel turned, and, seeing her injury gone, went to apologize for making it. “I’m so sorry, I-”

But Goldia cut her off. “ **Thank you.** ”

 

A sinking feeling filled the doctor and he visibly slumped, looking very much like Oswald, joining him in his hopelessness. As he cradled his real wrist with the cross on it, which still had his hand, Goldia answered the same questions a second time, and in a few minutes, the court would rule her completely sane and Oswald would then be charged with a major misdemeanor for his employment of mind-cough, along with his shady medical companion.

But then Weber looked up and met the  eyes of Thomas Schneider. Roger’s eyes perfectly communicated the promise he planned to fulfill to the young lawyer. Thomas met his gaze levelly and looked away after a few moments, facing the court doctor as he asked the last few questions.

  
  


Chapter 26

 

The witch rushed through the midday streets of Vienna, away from the courthouse and heading for the hospital. She had little time, but for the first time in nearly all her life, she felt as if she had any time at all, and the feeling bolstered her.

She reached the hospital, but as she was about to lay down the basket near the door, she paused for a moment, reconsidering. Then, she threw it in a large waste barrel, and by the time she walked in the door with her breath held, it was a heap of flash-burned ashes.

She strode quickly past the apathetic secretary and into the door she’d already been through twice today, releasing her held breath as she released her suggestion to the man. Ignoring the annoying headache threatened by the concentration the spell now took, she rushed down the hall, up the steps, and into the 8th ward, where a loose end needed to be tied up.

 

Fritz watched with satisfaction as Oswald curtly exited the room with his slimy doctor, who also left looking angry. But his anger looked more direct, more… like he had a plan. The doctor always looked like he was up to something if you really watched for it. And with that man, Fritz was definitely watching for it as he picked up his notes and bags and left the room with his niece and lawyer.

Outside the courtroom, Goldia hugged her uncle tightly. He smiled and lightly returned it. Thomas looked on with a smile, but a short-lived one as he glimpsed Weber giving him one last look before exiting the building. He warily watched the man leave, then turned back to his clients.

“The look on that man’s face at the fine he had to pay to get out of his fifteen-year sentence!” Fritz laughed. “I bet he just lost over half the ‘friends’ at that table with him.”

Goldia released her arms from around him, beaming up at him with her cherry red eyes. They had tears in them.

“What’s the matter, Goldia?” Fritz asked with a smile. “Feeling a bit overwhelmed?”

“Yes.” she answered tearfully. “I love myself. And I love you, I’m so lucky to have both.” Fritz understood what she meant and nodded. Then, she quickly hugged Thomas, taking the young lawyer by surprise. “Thank you.” she said.

Thomas smiled warmly, glad for the distraction from his worries. “Of course. It’s my job.”

“And you’ll be paid well.” Goldia promised. “Both of you will be welcome to my home any time you would like. I owe you both so much.”

Fritz smiled. “I’d be happy to spend time with you.”

But as she let go of Thomas, he frowned. “That’s very kind of you, but…”

His expression spread to Fritz and Goldia. “What’s wrong?” Goldia asked.

But Fritz knew what he was talking about. “Your sister.”

Thomas nodded gravely. “Yes. I’m worried about what Weber plans to do. I really don’t know what, or how to stop it.”

 

The wooden door shifted from a forced grey to its natural brown color. The small stain in between the door and the wall returned to red.

The color of the rest of the small chamber at the top of the tower returned, and the effect spread to the unmoving little captive of her own mind. She unfroze from her sitting position on the chair near the window, the grim look at her missing finger coming alive again. The finger kept bleeding slowly, and she tightly gripped it with her other hand, which by this point was covered in blood from the stump. Her breathing was sharp and strained with the pain that hadn’t dulled much since she’d lost the finger. But then she looked up at the door as the knob turned, and someone opened it.

“E-Enjel?” Charlotte asked.

“Enjel is gone.” The witch said, stepping into the room. Charlotte shrieked and curled into a ball.

“Enjel is gone, and I’m going to take you back home, alright?” the witch knelt down beside Charlotte, who was shaking badly and starting to cry.

“Just stay asleep and let your finger heal.”

_ How do I convince her her finger is fine? That’s all it would take… _

The witch had an idea. “I have a medicine for your finger.” 

Charlotte opened her hazel eyes and looked at the witch’s for the first time, still terrified. “R-r-really?”

“Yes. Let me see it.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No!”

The witch was growing impatient. She was low on time, and this connection was astoundingly more difficult to maintain than it had been before. Then, she remembered something.

“Do you want your pocket mirror back?”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Yes or no. Both are correct.”

“Well, um… no?” Charlotte said. “Unless I need it… but I don’t want it, and since no is a correct answer, then…”

“Fine.” the witch took the pocket mirror she had given Charlotte and Enjel that evening out of her pocket. It seemed like it was only yesterday to the witch.

“I said I didn’t-” Charlotte began, but she was cut off by the smashing sound of the little mirror as it hit the wall of the staircase outside the room after the witch suddenly stood and threw it.

“Now, Charlotte,” the witch said, turning to face her again. “This place is only a dream. Enjel was only a dream. Vienna was only a dream. When you next wake up, you’re going to be home, alright?”

Charlotte was surprised. “R-really?”

“Yes. Sleep for a while longer, and everything will return to normal.”

“Alright…” Charlotte said. Then, she glanced down at her hands. Her finger was back, and she hadn’t even noticed it. But as the witch turned and left, everything grew blurrier: The walls, the floor, the door, the entire tower. It swallowed her up in a deep sleep as the witch departed.

 

Goldia was walking beside her uncle, following behind Thomas in the middle-class district street. She checked her pockets. The scythe and the pocket mirror were both still there, which was nice. Not that they mattered, but she preferred not to lose them. Reassured, she looked up from her pockets at Thomas’s back.

“Can we see your sister?” Goldia asked. “What’s her name, anyway?”

“Her name is Mia.” Thomas answered, not turning his head.

Goldia waited, but he did not continue. “Um…”

“Mia is very ill.” Fritz stepped in for Thomas. “She als- I mean, she has multiple personality disorder.”

Goldia noticed but thought nothing of it. It was an understandable mistake. “Oh…”  she said. “You mean, similar to how I was when I was committed to the hospital?”

“Yes, I would imagine so.” Fritz replied.

“I don’t know what you were like back then,” Thomas responded over his shoulder. “But I find it difficult to imagine you like her. She can be… worrying.”

_ Well, I’m sure I was too.  _ Goldia thought.

“She’s really a kind woman when you get to know her, the real her.” Thomas said. “I just wish I got to see her more often these days…”

“What do you mean?” Fritz asked, confused. “Doesn’t she live in your house with you?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

 

The witch went down street after street, carrying a brown-haired, hazel-eyed girl in a blanket in her arms. She was headed for the city gate.

For the first time in a long time, the witch’s mind was filled with thoughts. She felt human in many ways she hadn’t for ages. She was thinking about anything other than what she was doing, she was caring for someone else without the intent to manipulate them, and she felt like time was actually passing for her and not just for the sky and everyone around her. As she travelled through the city, she entertained a multitude of thoughts.

_ All these years, all these many, many years, and I never thought to simply tell him no, to cast the cursed wand off. _

_ I’d been such a child when he gave it to me, and it seems a child I’ve remained. A ruthless one, to be sure, but an easily misguided one. _

_ But now, because of this special girl with a name bathed in gold, I have no future with this being.  _ And then she added, with happiness that rarely accompanied such a thought, _ I have no future at all. _

Her thoughts turned to the sleeping girl in her arms.  _ But this girl has one; I’ll not take it from her before mine is mercifully ended. It would be a good act to be remembered and judged for. _

The witch exited the city and headed out off the road, into the trees.

Just inside the city, Oswald watched with rage as his worthless doctor who he blamed for losing his case ran off out of the gate.

 

“Here we are.” Thomas opened the door. He was tense, and it rubbed off a bit on Goldia and her uncle. But in they stepped to the Schneider residence.

It was by no means what Die Heilige’s home had been, but it was still quite a step up from Leidl’s. Fritz found it a lot more inviting, mostly because it wasn’t Oswald doing the inviting but also because the house didn’t feel like it was trying to be bigger than it needed to. It was certainly a nice place to live, but not because it had rooms the size of Fritz’s house or it was staffed with servants; it was just cozy.

A woman appeared at the top of the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. She was young, in her mid twenties. She wasn’t particularly thin nor chubby, and had short black hair and blue eyes, like her brother’s. She wore a simple but beautiful white-and-brown dress.

“Hello… Mia?” Thomas asked hopefully.

“Hello, Thomas! How was work today? Who are these people you brought with you?” Mia asked, starting down the stairs, lifting the sides of her dress to prevent them from getting caught on something.

Thomas sighed with relief. Fritz and Goldia did the same to a less obvious extent; they’d been worried too. The young lawyer went forward and hugged his sister as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s so good to see you again, Mia.”

“You say that as if you haven’t seen me in days!” she said with a laugh.

“I-It certainly feels that way sometimes.”

She let go and stepped around him, facing Goldia and her uncle. “And who are our guests?”

“These are people I had the privilege of working with today who I’m letting visit our home.” Thomas explained. “This is Goldia Die Heilige,” he said, gesturing to her as she curtseyed politely, “and this is Mr. Fritz Leidl, her uncle.” Fritz nodded with a smile.

“Oh my! Die Heilige, Die Heilige… I’m sure I recognize that name from somewhere…” Mia said, examining Goldia, trying to remember something.

To Goldia, Mia also looked vaguely familiar. “I don’t remember a Schneider, but I remember you from somewhere…” and then, after a few moments, it clicked as a few memories crossed her mind. There was a woman in a fancy dress at a gathering, a party at night being hosted by her father. Goldia had been wandering around, but found her and talked to her a little. The first time she ran into the woman, she’d been kind and agreeable enough, but when they met again at the same event, the lady was snotty and rude.

_ “I’m feeling sorry for the host… This was supposed to be a grand event, and yet…” _

_ “Tell me, do  _ you  _ know any of the latest trends? No? Hmph! It’s not as if I expected anything from such a pitiful girl in the first place!” _

“Oh! You were the lady at the last Die Heilige Private Gathering.”

Mia’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh! And you’re that kind little girl Gertrude was so rude to.”

“Gertrude?” Goldia asked. Thomas put a hand over his eyes in embarrassment.

“Yes, Gertrude. Don’t you remember that puffed-up lady?”Mia asked, oblivious to her brother.

“Oh…” Goldia understood. “Yes, she was certainly unpleasant.”

Thomas lowered his hand from his face, looking at Goldia with surprise. “Gertrude’s… not…”

Goldia nodded, as if to say  _ I know, I know. _

“Anyways, what brings you both here?” Mia asked.

“They’re just visiting for today, Mia.” Thomas answered. “I’m giving them a place to stay before they go back home tomorrow.”

“I see! Well, let’s be good hosts!” Mia said happily.

“Well, you certainly have a beautiful home.” Fritz said politely.

“Shall we show you around?” Thomas took the cue gratefully.

They both nodded.

“Right this way.”

 

As she walked on in silence with the sleeping girl in her arms for a few hours, the witch noticed something:  she was growing tired. Something else she hadn’t done in a long time. Looking down at her hands, she started seeing wrinkles in the skin and the joints. She looked like she had aged a decade for each hour she’d walked. She didn’t stop though; only quickened her pace. She’d had over a hundred years to be young; she wasn’t about to let a few wrinkles stop her from putting things back where they’d been, from properly putting a misused puppet back where it belonged. For a moment, she wondered if she should have waited longer to break the wand, and given herself more time.

_ No. Holding the thing was like going along with a joke you knew was being played on you and would have cruel consequences. Not to mention you’d already bought it for most of your life.  Besides, this way he can’t find you nearly as easily. _

_ But he will find you. _

The sun fell lower and lower in the sky, and the witch’s body was gradually realizing how ancient it was. The wand was no longer there to persuade it otherwise, and although she was getting close to Keifurberg, each step was growing steadily more taxing. But she knew she couldn’t stop and rest; if she did, she’d likely never get her old bones up again.

  
  


Chapter 27

 

After Thomas had finished showing them around, Goldia and Mia had gone to the library together while he and Fritz went to his office to talk. Thomas had been worried about leaving Goldia alone with his sister, but they managed to convince him she would be fine. Goldia had been very enthusiastic and Fritz had been confident, and Thomas felt bad for the way he was treating his sister, and so he gave in. He needed to talk to Fritz, and he didn’t think he needed Goldia for the conversation anyway.

Mia and Goldia wandered the small library together, saying nothing for a few moments. Then, Goldia turned and casually addressed her.

“What’s your favorite book?”

Mia paused, thinking. “Well, besides the Bible… well, actually, nevermind that. My favorite book is probably…” she walked to a particular shelf and looked for it. “Hmm… oh yes! This one: A Boy’s Midnight Journey. I only have the first part and the last page however.”

Goldia raised an eyebrow. “I know that book…”

“You do? That’s strange that you’d know…”

“Why?”

“You see, I’m pretty sure this is the only one of its kind, and I obtained it rather… unusually.” Mia said, hesitantly.

Then Goldia remembered.  _ That’s my brother’s book.  _ “How did you get it?”

“Um… I… He…”

“Who?” Goldia was confused, and growing suspicious.

“I got it in a dream!” Mia explained hurriedly, then flinched at herself. “No, you idiot! She’s not going to believe that!”

Goldia saw that Mia was talking to herself, and took a guess as to who was talking with who. “Gertrude?”

“Heavens, no!” Mia replied. “I’m offended you would even call me that! Gertrude’s a snot! I’m Angela!”

“Sorry, Angela.” Goldia said calmly. “So you got that book in a dream? Who from?”

“What in the world-” Mia cut herself off. “See? I told you. She had multiple personality disorder for a time too, and has likely seen the same being you have.”

Goldia nodded with a laugh. “It’s okay, Mia. I know what it’s like.”

Mia blushed. “It’s just so… embarrassing. I wish they would go away, but…”

Goldia frowned. “Don’t think of them like that.”

“But they’re not good for me…”

“Not separately, no.” Goldia explained. “You see, I made this problem much worse when I tried to get rid of them. Because when you do that, you think of them as different from yourself. But when you think of them as part of you, they stop being separable from you.”

While Mia looked thoroughly confused, Goldia was thoroughly impressed with herself.  _ Thank you, everyone.  _ She wanted to talk with herself more in depth when she next slept.

“Anyways, Mia, tell me how you got the book. I’ve seen it before. May I read it?”

Mia hesitated. “Most of it’s blank; there’s only a little at the beginning and the end.”

“I know.”

Mia slowly gave Goldia the book. Goldia opened it as she started talking.

“I remember hearing about a strange boy from you or your uncle at one point during the tour. I think we’ve both seen the same one, yes?”

“Did he have a grin that never went away and a way of talking that made you feel dominated?” Goldia asked as she started reading the first page.

_ A certain boy was known to have a problematic condition, one that would only affect him during the night. One that even the best doctors could not explain. _

“Yes, yes he did!” Mia said with a shiver. “He made me feel like a little child: naive, stupid and powerless.”

Goldia nodded in agreement, turning the familiar page.

_ Thought to be the work of the devil by many, it was said that the boy would wake up during the night… and speak to those that had perished… _

“Did he give you this book?”

“Well, in a dream, Angela and I found it in a dark and abandoned version of the library we’re in right now. But when I found it, I woke up in the real library, and there it really was, in the same place. I had sleepwalked here and someone had planted it.”

_ The witch…  _ Goldia immediately thought, surprised that she knew until she remembered Enjel. Goldia flipped to the end of the book as she asked Mia something else.

“Have you read it?”

“Yes.”

_ No one around him will ever know about this secret of his. Such a privilege belongs only to me, my dear… _

And of course, a little inverted cross was drawn at the top of the page.  _ Poor Henri… _

She closed the book. “What do you think of it?”

“Angela and I think it’s a depressing story…” Mia said. “Gertrude just thinks it’s boring, being the snot she is.”

Goldia chuckled, then grew serious again. “Well, it certainly is that. Depressing, I mean.”  She put the book back on the shelf where Mia had taken it from.

Mia sighed with surprising drawl. “How dull it is, really. It doesn’t explain much of anything and leaves out everything important after the intro while keeping the outro.”

Goldia raised her eyebrows. “Gertrude?”

“Yes, that’s m-”

“No it is not!” Mia cut herself off. She sighed heavily. “You see? Extremely awkward.”

Goldia just smiled, much to all of Mia’s surprise.

 

Thomas sat down in his office and Fritz sat across from him. They both knew what the unspoken topic was but neither knew what to say. Finally, Fritz spoke.

“Well? What will he do? Can’t we just secure her, keep her safe, like you already are doing but a little tighter?”

“He won’t give up that easily.” Thomas shook his head. “I have to get rid of him, permanently, or he’ll haunt Mia until the day she dies.”

“Well, isn’t he on a tight schedule? He’s being investigated tomorrow for malpractices. It’s likely he’ll be sentenced with something he can’t bail himself out of. Oswald’s certainly not going to help him.” Fritz added with a spiteful chuckle.

“Not after the fine the court he lost today cost him.” Thomas agreed. “But I don’t think Weber himself is the threat to my sister, although he certainly acts as an extension of it…”

“You’re talking about the demon, that strange boy?”

“Yes.” Thomas sighed.

But something didn’t seem right about that boy himself posing a threat. Fritz tried to remember something Goldia had told him, some time ago.

_ You see, he was able to attack me and my brother when we were young, gullible, and had been granted access to by our mother. _

“We need to involve Goldia in this discussion.” Fritz said.

Thomas, although surprised for a moment, quickly saw why and kicked himself for not thinking so earlier. “If course! She’s experienced much of what Mia has. It makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that?”

 

They opened the door to the library and startled Goldia, who had just put the book away.  They stopped and listened for a moment. Thomas didn’t like the way Mia’s face looked, but he was interested to see what Goldia did.

“Gertrude?” Goldia asked.

“Yes, that’s m-”

“No it is not!” Mia cut herself off. She sighed heavily. “You see? Extremely awkward.”

Thomas and Fritz couldn’t see Goldia’s face, but they saw Mia’s surprised one, which grew when she saw them over Goldia’s shoulder.

“Hello again, Mia, Goldia.” Thomas said. Goldia turned around, the smile on her face fading. “Sorry about that…”

“Sorry about what?” Goldia asked pleasantly.

_ Gertrude.  _ “Nothing.” Thomas said quickly. Mia showed no reaction. “Anyway, your uncle and I were talking, Goldia, and we wanted to speak with you.”

“Oh.” Goldia glanced at Mia apologetically. “Alright.”

Mia kept a blank face as her brother took Goldia and left her alone in the library.

 

Weber gave a frustrated mental grunt at his master as he entered his head. Weber was moving through the woods, pursuing the witch, his green eyes starting to become tinged with gold as he drew near.

_ Why weren’t you there earlier? Why did she abandon the mission? Why aren’t  _ you  _ punishing- _

Weber was cut off by a sharp, yet sickly sweet voice. It was the same kind of sweet found in overripe fruit.  _ I suggest you start by shutting that wide mouth of yours, my dear doctor! _

Weber indeed felt his thoughts zipped shut. He couldn’t form sentences in his head. He had to stop talking mid-rant, something he was bad at doing, and listen as he continued through the trees.

_ First of all, you have been an utter failure in every way, in this most important bargain of bargains. You have lost your job and position of power among mortals. You got your puppet Oswald into trouble for no reason. He’ll never recover. And neither will you. _

A sharp pain shot through Weber’s head, and he grunted and stopped in his tracks, holding his hands to his forehead tightly.

_ As you should have already known, I was busy searching for her when you flailed around, asking for your master to give you direction in the courtroom while your pathetic case burned to the ground. I think she must have done the unthinkable, or else I would have found her immediately. _

“What… did she do?” Weber asked with his mouth, the pain still gripping his forehead.

_ See? Unthinkable!  _ The demon laughed.

_ You fool. You had so many things lined up for you: A job, a doctoral profession, much more than a  lifetime’s worth of experience, an ally like you… _

“I am… NOT… like her…” Weber grimaced.

_ Oh, you idiot. What makes you different from the very witches you hated so fervently, and apparently _

_ still do? Over a century old and you still act like a middle-aged bigot. _

Weber sank to his knees, and mentally surrendered the point.

_ Now, you have lived much longer than you should have. So believe me when I say it will  _ not  _ be hard to turn your body against you. You have lost me a great prize, Weber, and I don’t think I can ever even try to take it again. A soul, with nearly the vibrance of five…  _ the strange boy trailed off with wonder. He continued.  _ Now, are you ready to listen, to keep your mouth shut without my help? _

“Y-yes…” Weber gasped in relief as it felt like a knife was taken out of his head, the wound it left regenerating. He could think straight again.

_ What would you have me do? _

_ First, finish what you started when you recklessly ran out of the city. _

_ Gladly. _

_ Good. Next, follow through on your promise to Mr. Schneider. _

_ Equally gladly. _

_ Excellent. After that, I will decide whether or not to send you to your god after this fiasco. _

The sun wasn’t growing close to the horizon for the day, but it was for the witch. Her walking speed was starting to suffer, and her aging arms were putting her through the first muscle aches she’d had in a long time. Her purple hair was turning very pale, and her legs were starting to tremble. She wasn’t hunching at all, however.

Thankfully, the little girl in her arms was still sleeping soundly. But if she had awoken, she would have noticed something different about the witch that the witch couldn’t see, unless she had a mirror. And mirrors hadn’t reflected the witch in a long time.

 

Chapter 28

 

“What is it?” Goldia asked, seating herself.

Thomas sighed. “It’s Mia. We don’t know what to do for her tonight, and since you certainly have experience in this, as your uncle pointed out, we wanted to hear what you have to say.”

“What’s the danger?” Goldia asked. “Is this what you were worried about when we were leaving the courthouse?”

Fritz and Thomas nodded. “Yes. Thomas, get her up to speed. Then, she can get you up to speed.”

The witch was growing weaker. She was nearly to Keifurberg, and after that, one way or another, freedom. Her single chance at happiness was hers. She could see the smoke in the sky from fireplaces, and if she strained her weak ears, she could hear distant village chatter. She didn’t quicken or lower her speed; she was too old to commit to either. She just kept steady, disregarding the pain, ache, and exhaustion. They would be taken from her shortly, and she had a task to see through.

But as she continued between the trees, she felt a familiar feeling of a familiar being entering her mind, and his voice, which grew sickly sweet when it was angry, began talking to her.

_ Hello again, Rozenmarine. _

Rozenmarine almost stopped walking. Almost.

_ What’s the hurry? Don’t worry; this is the last time I’ll talk to you expecting you to answer. _

She kept walking. The demon finally raised his voice.

_ Answer me! _

She forced him out. No wand, no permission. “Speak to my face, coward.” she said, surprising herself with her elderly voice.

“Very well.” Rozenmarine stopped as the strange boy, his skin blacker than night, appeared with a poof in front of her, his ever-present grin sharper than usual. Rozenmarine held the child, staring more directly into his face than she had stared in a long time.

“Look at you. You’re old, decaying, and treacherous to the most powerful demon you’ll ever know.”

Rozenmarine said nothing to him, but called over her shoulder. “I know you’re there, doctor. Don’t try anything.”

Weber, his eyes as golden as the witch’s had been that morning, stepped out from the tree he’d been hiding behind. He was holding an old axe, dripping with dark, old blood that should have hardened long ago.

“What are you going to do to stop me, witch?” he said, advancing on her, her back still facing him. “You can’t even keep yourself young, let alone hurt me.”

“Who are you, really?” she rasped. Breaking eye contact with the Strange Boy,  she started walking again, past him and away from the doctor. The strange boy smiled and faded out of view.

“If you really wanted to know, you would turn around and face me!” he shouted.

She stopped. Charlotte moved in her arms, turning over in her sleep.

_ It’s time to wake her up… _

The strange boy didn’t hear what she was thinking, and he knew it. “What was that?” she heard him ask pleasantly.

Rozenmarine ignored him, laying Charlotte down and rustling her awake. Charlotte’s hazel eyes opened slowly and looked up at her. She was surprised.

“Your eyes… they’re hazel…”

Rozenmarine smiled. A tear fell on Charlotte’s face. “I know.” She wiped her eyes and lifted Charlotte up. “Run along. The village is not far.”

Charlotte stood, and, when she saw the doctor above Rozenmarine raising an axe, screamed and ran. She had already turned around and didn’t see his hand catch fire. But she heard him holler, and that doubled her speed.

“Are… are you sure about this?” Thomas asked, Fritz clearly thinking much the same thing.

“Yes. I am sure. All of me.”

As Charlotte ran out of sight, the witch quickly turned and stood up, but gasped in pain as her weak legs gave out. They had paid the price for that magic, and she was running out quickly. Weber, for his part, took several steps back and stared at his hand for a few seconds until it stopped burning.

“You fool!” he spat at the crumpled witch.

She slowly lifted her old head and faced him. “I… was a fool…”

“Do you still not recognize me?” he sneered. He was going to enjoy this moment, this earth-shattering realization at the end of her life.

Her tired, hazel eyes gazed deep into his gold ones. “Show me your real eyes. Take off their disguise.”

Weber smiled and obliged. As his eyes turned green, Rozenmarine’s widened as wide as the wrinkled lids would allow. It was a delicious sight for him, and well worth the temporary loss of connection to his master.

The green eyes, full of corrupted zeal and drive. The axe in his hands, covered with innocent blood. The way he held himself, self-righteous and unforgiving. It was the miller, her childhood neighbor from over a century ago. The man whose misguided fervor had destroyed far more lives than it had saved, created more witches than it had burned, pleased the devil far greater than it had pleased God.

Rozenmarine would have been utterly terrified a hundred years ago. But she had learned something since then, and she recalled it now.

_ Knowing more about someone should never give them power over you, only power for you over them.   _

“Hello, Roger Weber.” she said quietly.

“Hello and goodbye, Rozen.” he replied, taking a step forward.

“Before I die,” she whispered, “There are some things you must know.”

He stopped and took a knee, listening. “What is it, witch?”

“First, about me. I am free. I have done the unthinkable. I am no longer a witch. I always thought I would see you in Hell, but now that’s not going to happen.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Don’t interrupt me.” she commanded with more force than Weber expected from one in her position. “Now, about you. You are doomed. You have done the unthinkable. You will always be a slave. And you will one day find that no one you murdered, no one you manipulated, no one you cursed, will be waiting to meet you when your God casts you down to Hell.”

There was a cry of anger, the sound of an axe coming down, and the sound of an old woman’s life finally coming to a long-awaited end. Then, there was silence, broken only by occasional sobs of a man who was having a very difficult time of convincing himself that nothing he’d just heard was true.

Out of Weber’s mortal sight, a soul which had thought it would never do so found a single chance at happiness, and freely left the vast pumpkin patch it had been destined for.

 

Chapter 29

 

Mia looked up from her seat on the couch in front of a window as the door opened and Goldia entered the library.

“Sorry about that.” Goldia apologized, closing the door behind her.

Mia nodded lightly. “No need. I’m sure it was important.”

Goldia nodded back. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Of course not! Please do.” Mia replied immediately, patting the seat next to her.

Goldia smiled and took a seat beside Mia.

“Well, Mia, I want to get you know better, all of you, and I wanted to better introduce myselves.”

Although surprised for a moment, Mia brightened. “Really?”

Goldia smiled. “Yes, really. Would you like to go first or should I?”

“Oh, please go first.” Mia said, then shrunk a bit. “Please go on as long as possible.”

Goldia frowned. “What’s wrong, Mia? I want to know about you too.”

“I’m sorry, I’m Angela.” Mia tapped her fingers together nervously. “I’ll go away for now.”

“I’m back.” Mia said. “Sorry, she’s really shy.”

Goldia laughed. “Don’t worry about it.” Then, she leaned her head back, and gently closed her eyes as the setting sun seeped through the window onto her face.

“Um… Goldia?” Mia looked confused.

“Have you ever had a conversation with someone in your sleep, Mia?” Goldia asked, not opening her eyes or moving her head. “Met them, interacted with them?”

Mia was surprised.  “No, I don’t… think so…”

“Follow me, let me show you.” Goldia said, and relaxed.

“...Goldia?” Mia called after several moments. Then, she saw Goldia’s chest rise and fall a few times, her mouth go slightly slack, and all her muscles relax.

_ My, that was fast.  _ Mia thought.

_ Obviously.  _ Gertrude drawled.  _ She’s clearly grown skilled at sleeping. Hmph. _

_ She’s better at it than us, that’s for sure.  _ Angela said sadly.

_ Well, let’s try it.  _ Mia resolved, resting her head on its side, facing Goldia. She had a much more difficult time of getting to sleep, though, and it took her a while. Goldia took the time to meet with herself.

 

Lisette gracefully executed what was rapidly becoming her favorite series of movements across the floor of the dim midnight circus ring, landing on her feet. She tossed her hair out of her face and turned to the entrance of the large tent, facing the person who had just entered.

“Hello again, Enjel.” she said, neither welcoming nor unpleasant. “What is it?”

Enjel opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it.

Lisette decided to listen to her thoughts instead, but found that they were all over the place. There was apology, but there was also resentment. There was triumph and there was shame, there was certainty and there was confusion. Trying to make out words and sentences out of the soup of emotions was difficult for both of them.

“Well, what are you up to?” Enjel asked.

Lisette knew what she was doing. She was stalling while her thoughts sorted themselves out. Lisette had done it herself quite a lot, and she could understand. She went along with it.

“Oh, I’m just enjoying myself a little. I’ve started teaching myself to dance, borrowing some techniques I was forced to do for a long time and making them more interesting for me.”

“It looked pretty from what I saw.” Enjel said kindly.

“Thank you.” Lisette said simply.

They waited several awkward moments. Then, Lisette turned and started walking to the bleachers, where she took a seat.

“Wait!” Enjel followed but did not sit.

“Sit down, Enjel.” Lisette gestured.

Enjel slowly sat down on the wood bleacher. “How did you deal with all this?”

“Deal with what?”

“All these… mixed feelings. Where you love someone, but you hate them, and that person is yourself?”

Lisette looked thoughtful. “Hmmm. That’s a good question. Certainly one I wish I’d known the answer for when I was born.”

Enjel nodded. “Based on what I’ve heard, you subdivided yourself whenever you had feelings you didn’t like.”

“That’s true.” Lisette said sadly. “But it wasn’t right.”

“So what did you do? What did you change?” Enjel asked, growing exasperated.

Lisette looked her in the eyes. Enjel looked back. “You know what happened. Goldia told you when she healed you. What did I do?”

Enjel searched her mind and Lisette’s eyes for a few moments. Then, she found the memory she was looking for.

A dark chamber, with a mirror and its prisoner chained to it, was full of hatred and pain. The atmosphere of the room brightened deceptively when a very special girl entered, and began to try to heal the situation. But the darkness would not be fooled, it would not be betrayed again by the same person. Just looking at her was painful for the prisoner, who grew tired of the charade and lashed out, demanding an end to it.

Scared, the special girl very nearly gave up, very nearly abandoned the darkness to destroy itself and its captive. But she did not. Answering with a resounding refusal, she stayed, for she had a duty to fulfill, a wound, many wounds, to mend. Slowly, something in the room started to change. There was something there that hadn’t been before. It was a quiet, but persistent light that grew stronger the longer the girl nurtured it and shared it with the prisoner, penetrating the darkness that surrounded her. Soon, the prisoner could see through the lies the darkness was telling her, and the sincerity of the light opened her eyes. This girl, who had once betrayed her, had returned to truly save her. And suddenly, Enjel realized she was looking at herself, much as if she was looking at Lisette.

“Do you see?” Lisette asked.

“I’m… still confused.” Enjel said. “She treated you so badly; I never really understood that until today. But you forgave her anyway. Why? How?”

“Look again.” Lisette said. “What did she do for me?”

Enjel examined the memory again. Then, she saw it. The moment when the darkness lashed out. But more importantly, how Goldia reacted to it.

She pressed on. Nothing, not fear, not weakness, not apathy, not pain, would stop her from healing her worst victim: herself. And that held true for all of her selves. Including, Enjel realized, the Cherubina of Shed Wings. Goldia really was her single chance at happiness.

Lisette saw the change in Enjel’s face as it dawned on her. She decided to add to it.

“Enjel, if I can forgive Goldia, you can do it too.”

Enjel nodded solemnly. She would never look at Lisette the same way again. She looked around the empty circus, and ugly memories trickled into her head. Memories of torture, blame and neglect. Yet when she turned to face Lisette, she saw none of that. She just saw a truly brave and loyal friend. For both of them, it was like looking in a mirror, which it was.

Then, Enjel remembered what she had been like just this morning, what she had tried to do, even after how welcoming Goldia had been and how especially supportive Lisette had been. Looking at Lisette now, and realizing she’d been swinging her scythe at her hours ago, was too much. Enjel’s eyes welled up and she fell forward against Lisette, who supported her with a warm smile as she cried. Lisette was failing to keep tears from her own eyes.

Enjel felt so small compared to Lisette. Lisette was a true hero, a friend, whose heart was so bandaged yet so full of love.

Lisette, ever since Enjel had saved them today, and the difference she had made in Goldia’s conduct all day, felt small as well. Enjel was a strong, determined, and confident person, who never gave up.

“I’m so sorry…” Enjel wept. “You welcomed me home and I… I tried to kill you, all of you… tried to plunge you back to what you’d tried so hard to escape…”

“There, there.” Harpae said, surprising Enjel as she touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry too.”

Enjel, who was having difficulty speaking, thought instead.  _ What did I ever do to deserve being part of you? _

“Don’t be so hard on yourself!” Fleta scolded, standing above her. “You’re great at talking with people. We feel so confident with you around. We’re too hesitant, too scared without you to push us forward!”

Enjel was again very surprised by the new Fleta. Sure, she was being scolding, but she was managing to be supportive at the same time. Truly, a new skill. Enjel let go of Lisette and stood to hug Fleta, but when she embraced her, found herself hugging Goldia herself. Everyone else was no longer behind her, but in her arms. And more importantly, she was in Goldia’s arms.

They stood that way for a long time.

Then, wiping her face, Enjel let go and stepped back. “I need to go speak with Mia.”

“Yes. Let’s go.” Goldia smiled, then frowned. “How do you do that anyway? Travel between minds, I mean.”

Enjel put a hand to her chin, thinking. “I’ve only ever done it alone, and even then I usually had help. This will be tricky.” she took a seat as she continued explaining. “There are a few different ways to do it, but I was thinking of proximity. It’s the most cumbersome, but it’s definitely the simplest. All you have to do is look around your mind and walk towards other people’s. If you get really good at it, like the witch was, it takes you no time at all. But it may take us some patience and effort to reach Mia, even if she’s right next to us. I’m only able to do it because it’s a power the witch gave me, so you’ll have to follow me.”

Goldia smiled. “Alright! Let’s go.”

Enjel went and stepped out of the Midnight Circus, Goldia following behind her, and after a few moments, spotted a light in the distance. Off they went, holding hands as the Cherubina of Shed Wings guided them.

“Wait!” Harpae said, running up alongside them and gesturing for them to stop. “Someone needs to stay, for your safety.”

“I take it you would appreciate the task?” Goldia asked.

“Yes please.” Harpae answered. “Should something wake you up, you wouldn’t want to be completely absent.”

Goldia nodded, grateful that Harpae had considered it. “Go on then.”

 

It was a truly happy moment for Abalard when he and his daughter saw each other again as she ran into the house that late afternoon. Although she’d only been missing for a day, for people so close, it had felt like a week at least. And you could tell by the way they hugged each other. Mrs. Schmidt, although late to it, rushed out of the kitchen to join them with equal joy.

 

Mia finally drifted off to sleep, where she found herself alone. For a few moments. Then, she heard laughing. Gertrude appeared out of the dark in front of her, slowly clapping. She looked a lot like Mia, but she was much more gaunt and had a much more faded hue to her eyes and hair.

“Look at you! You finally went to sleep. Oh, but how are you supposed to talk to someone in your sleep? Can’t you see she’s tricking you? Certainly, this is some other ridiculous ‘cure’ or therapy Thomas is having her do.”

“I’m sure she’ll be here any minute now…” Mia shuffled her feet, but held eye contact with Gertrude, who shrugged.

“Suit yourself. You need the rest anyway.” Gertrude sighed.

Gertrude’s hope that Goldia wouldn’t “show up” or appear somehow was painfully audible.

“You know what?” Angela said, appearing behind Mia and stepping around her. Angela looked almost exactly like Mia, but her hair was longer and her clothing was even more simple.

“What?” Gertrude asked.

“I’m sick of the way you treat and regard that sweet little girl.” Angela stated.

“Well, I’m-” Gertrude began, but she stopped as she heard the sound of several pairs of feet walking towards them.

 

Chapter 30

 

Weber entered the gate into Vienna. It was late in the afternoon, and if he didn’t do something soon, his life would follow the sun’s example and set below the horizon. He started wandering the streets and thinking.

What Weber really needed now was a victory. He needed something to make up for the severe loss he had cost his master. The challenge was finding anything that could possibly equal a soul like Goldia’s. He remembered the boy’s parting words to him as he had left the axe behind, buried in the last member of the family he had ended with it.

_ Your only hope is gaining a soul like the Heir to Die Heilige’s. And let me assure you, souls like hers are rare. _

Weber knew. He’d spent over a century on this earth hunting for people like Goldia, and while he’d become very skilled at finding those with a mental condition like hers, he’d never before seen someone with such vibrance, such divided yet united energy. It was truly a dream catch, and even if he did somehow capture it, he doubted he would ever live to see another like her.

And that was the real problem: there was simply no way to take her. Although Weber had almost never seen it happen, once a person truly knew how valuable their consent was, and how to rescind it and keep it rescinded, there was no compromising them. They became invulnerable. It was hopeless.

Unless… he could poison his way in.

But to do that, he had to take back a gift he’d given.

_ I’ll also need a very good shot.  _ He thought, entering the poor district of Vienna, where a weapon was waiting for him.

 

“Hello Goldia.” Mia called, pushing past Gertrude. “Who are these?” she asked, looking at the other three.

Goldia let go of Enjel’s hand and gestured to her selves. “Hello Mia, Gertrude, Angela. These are me.”

“ **Hello there.** ” Mia said, with varying levels of enthusiasm.

“What are you all called?” Gertrude asked rudely.

“This is Fleta, Enjel, and Lisette.” Goldia pointed to each of them, and they nodded politely as they were indicated. “One of me is absent, however. Her name is Harpae, and she needed to stay behind in case anything happened.”

“I see!” Mia said happily. She was glad to be able to relate to someone like this so well. It was something she never thought she would do. Even Gertrude felt impressed, although she was trying to hide it. But then, as always, she found something unpleasant to talk about.

“‘In case anything happened’?” she raised an eyebrow. “What could happen?”

“We don’t know, that’s why she stayed.” Fleta answered, rolling her eyes.

“Fleta…” Goldia turned to her with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“Forget it.” Gertrude waved her hand and dropped it. She was not about to argue with a little girl like that.

“I heard that!” Fleta snapped.

“ **What?** ” Mia said, surprised.

“If you listen, you can hear what the person you’re thinking with is thinking.” Fleta explained condescendingly, looking at Gertrude.

Goldia sighed. “She’s sorry, please forgive me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Angela said, quietly pleased with the annoyance Fleta was causing Gertrude to give off.

“Hmph.” Gertrude replied, not at all convinced by the face Fleta was making that she was sorry. But then, Fleta straightened up, although a bit reluctantly.

“Sorry Mia.”

“ **Again, it’s fine.** ” Mia and Angela answered.

Eager to talk about someone else, Gertrude moved on from Fleta and turned to the annoyingly amused-looking girl Goldia had called Enjel. Deciding against it, she moved on to the thus far very quite and pale girl, but Mia didn’t quite remember her name, and so Gertrude didn’t know how to address her either.

“My name is Lisette.” the girl said simply.

“Oh. Right.” Gertrude said.

Goldia glanced around the vast, empty looking space. “Well, is there anywhere you like to go in your mind? Any places you could show me?”

Mia looked confused. “What?” she asked. “This is my head; I don’t have solid locations in it…”

“That’s a shame.” Goldia said sadly. “Want to try and make one?”

“Make one?” Gertrude scoffed. “What’s the point in making a place inside your head? It’s not real.”

“That’s not the point.” Lisette said.

“Then… what is the point?”

“Don’t you spend a lot of time in your head?” Enjel asked.

“Well… yes…” Angela answered.

“So it makes sense to have a place to be in it, doesn’t it?” Fleta explained. “You have so much more potential is this space of yours than this dull landscape.”

“Well, how do you make it?” Mia asked, growing excited. “Where do I start?”

Fleta beamed. “Let me show you!”

Goldia smiled. But Lisette looked very much like there was something she needed to say. Goldia listened.

_ What about Weber? Why we came here? _

_ We can simply tell her she’s invulnerable to him while she’s in her special place. Which, if she thinks that, she is. _

Lisette nodded.  _ I see. Perfect. _

Gertrude looked like she’d almost heard something.

 

Weber approached the door to the small house. This was supposedly the building the witch had stayed in, and where he had stored his weapon. It was Roman Per’s property, a small shack by comparison to his real home in the countryside outside the city. He really only owned it to satisfy some rule that required noblemen of Vienna to own property in the city. Oswald had out of obligation taken care of it, in fact a lot better than Roman Per had in recent years, and so it looked much better than the buildings around it, most of which no one legally lived in.

Weber held a hand to the knob until it came unlocked and he opened it.

Inside the house, he saw the fireplace in front of the couch, which housed a dim fire that had likely been burning since last night. He ignored it as it finished dying, and went into the small kitchen. Thoughts swirled through his desperate head.

His only plan, and he knew there was a good chance it wouldn’t work, was to administer the poison to Goldia again, and swoop in and see what opening he could make for his master. The first place this could go wrong was the drug itself: would it even work on her anymore?

Weber considered the substance as he found the small crossbow he had stowed here. Rozenmarine had made it, with some assistance from the Strange Boy. Weber had been understandably miffed when he found out he hadn’t been included in creating it; he was sure he could’ve made it something powerful. But sadly, his role had instead been in administering it.

They had made it to target people with multiple personality and other such opportune weaknesses, although they were rare. Because  while these people were already much easier to catch, it still required a great measure of personal involvement to do so. Take Goldia, for example. The Strange Boy had spent the majority of her life with her, and he’d still barely failed. It was fortunate for her that he and the witch finished the medicine only shortly before she had awoken and mostly completed the road to recovery. Mind Cough, as he called it, had been greatly reducing her ability to think straight and to pull herself together, as long as he had kept his job. It was making conquering her and others, like that Ms. Schneider, a much less time-consuming endeavor. But then he’d been fired, and she’d recovered shortly after. Curse that lawyer.

But how would she react now, that she was altogether? Weber had a feeling that although he thought she still had that pocket mirror, she would be much more resistant to it. He didn’t know why, though. Maybe she had developed an immunity to it since last time, maybe she had found a weakness in its effects. But it was most likely something he didn’t know: whatever it was that had scared off the witch.

The second place this last-ditch plan could fail was the stage where he actually infiltrated the girl’s mind. Mind Cough didn’t give him permission. His only chance was that it would confuse her into giving him access.

Again, what concerned him the most was the fact that the witch had failed. Not only that, she had run away, abandoning an objective after over a hundred years of never doing so once. Could that happen to him? What was waiting for him in that girl’s mind? It was a great risk, but he saw no other option. He just had to hope the same thing wouldn’t ruin him as it seemed to have ruined Rozenmarine.

Weber again cursed that meddling lawyer as he retrieved a small pouch of bolts. That test could have gone so much better without him, and none of this would have happened without him ousting Weber out of his career in the first place. Goldia really would be his by now.

_ And if all goes well, she and Mia will be gone, like they should already be.  _ Weber opened the door and hand-locked it behind him, walking out into the street again. But he didn’t head for the middle district, not yet. He still didn’t have the mind cough.

No, he headed for the rich district, for he needed something back from Oswald. And more than just the drug. While Weber had blown him off earlier, the way he had acted after the court case was now bothering the doctor as he went to see the nobleman again. Up until then, he’d been a tolerable puppet, minus the way he acted as if he was in any way superior to Weber himself.

_ As long as I’m settling scores today, might as well. _

 

Thomas and Fritz glanced into the library, quiet as possible to avoid risking waking them up. The two were sleeping soundly next to each other.

“Well,” Thomas whispered, closing the door. “it seems she’s achieved the first step.”

“We should really leave them alone.” Fritz said. “Give them some privacy. Besides, based on what I know about you and your sister, she’ll be much more hesitant to do anything if she catches you watching over her.”

Thomas sighed. “I know, but at the same time, don’t you think we should watch over them? I mean, what if the doct-”

“We won’t be able to do anything, the way he attacks.” Fritz said grimly, being very acquainted to this feeling of uselessness in this scenario. “Really, all we can do is make sure he doesn’t come too close in the real world to harm her, but if he tries to enter her mind, there’s really nothing we can do.”

Thomas put a hand to his head. “Good heavens. How do you deal with such a feeling, being in charge of your loved one’s protection and not being able to do anything about it?”

“Follow me.” Fritz started down the hall and to the stairs going down. He and Thomas started descending them side by side after the lawyer caught up with him. “Do you have a chess board?”

“Yes, in the drawing room.” Thomas answered.

“Really? Excellent. Now, to answer your question, I don’t actually know that for myself very well, aside from compensating for it by helping her in other ways. Also, I’d imagine you’d be much more experienced than I in this field of care.” Fritz said. Thomas sighed again.

“Yes, but you see, Goldia is healthy and happy now. Mia’s still… “ he trailed off.

“I don’t take credit for her mental improvement.” Fritz said. “I only reared her in her physical needs and pursuits, such as the dispute with that pig Oswald you helped us finish today.”

“Hmmm.” Thomas said nothing for the last few steps. At that, he momentarily forgot Mia and was once again amazed by just how much Fritz had done. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was almost too good to be true.

Following Fritz into the drawing room, he voiced his thoughts. “You know, you’ve done an awful lot for that girl. I know you’re her uncle, but still... You’ve gone much farther for her than many in your position would. She was frankly dumped on you out of nowhere by a man like Oswald, but instead of venting your frustration with him on her, you quickly rearranged your life around her. And when Die Heilige finally showed up, you firmly rejected negotiating with him outside a court and dropped everything to fight him in the capital of another country. It’s so admirable, it’s almost…” Thomas paused, searching for the right word. Fritz waited expectantly, searching the closet Thomas had shown him earlier. “...suspicious.” Thomas decided.

Fritz frowned. “What do you mean?” He’d never really considered how his actions would be perceived by anyone other than Goldia, and this took him by surprise. He found the chess board and placed it on the table by the window, proceeding to open the boxes and start setting up pieces as Thomas took a seat opposite him and considered.

“Well, I’m really just wondering what you plan to do after all this is settled.” Thomas explained, subtly changing the angle of the subject to be less threatening to Fritz.

“Oh, well…” Fritz was relieved.  _ That’s obvious _ , he thought. “I plan on going back home to live in Keifurburg, like I always have.”

“What about Goldia?” Thomas pressed.

“She’ll come with me and I’ll take care of her.” Fritz said, then looked confused with himself. “Wait a minute…”

“She now owns the largest mansion and the most wealth in the city, perhaps in all of Austria. What about that?”

“Well, she’ll… own it, I suppose.” Fritz answered lamely. He realized how little he’d thought of this. “I haven’t really discussed this with her. She can’t live there on her own, and I don’t think it’d be right for me to live there with her…”

“You don’t think it would be right?” Thomas asked, helping Fritz set up the last few pieces and taking his first move.

“Well, no. Of course not.” Fritz felt truly uncomfortable that he hadn’t thought this through. He took his turn and continued.“I live in Keifurburg, and I’m happy there. But I don’t want to make her live there with me, she could live in such a grand mansion...”

“Hmmm.” Thomas mumbled. His suspicions of Fritz, which had been weak to start with, but still relevant, died at hearing that. The man was clearly sincere, in a position where many others would have taken advantage of and exploited everyone and everything they could. It said a lot about a man who could, if he wanted, live in the Die Heilige home and perhaps even slowly wrestle power over it away, that all he wanted was for his niece to be happy and to live peacefully in his humble village. Thomas never thought he’d find a man like that after all his years in law school and after. He’d met too many people very much unlike Fritz in this way. It did him good to be around the man.

“I suppose I’ll have to go over it with her.” Fritz said simply as they continued play. Thomas nodded.

“Yes, you should.” He agreed.

 

On a roof opposite the window of a large mansion’s occupied study in the middle of the rich district, a figure crouched in the dying light, raising a small crossbow in his hand.

 

Chapter 31

 

Oswald glanced at the grandfather clock in his study and sighed heavily. After all the numbers he’d crunched just now, the calculations he’d had to run to see where his finances were after the catastrophe all these weeks of planning had led up to, it felt like it had been at least a week, not a few hours, since that humiliating defeat at the hands of that ridiculous peasant and his lawyer.

Most people as rich as Oswald would have had a clerk or a similar servant do all this mathematics and finance for them, but not Oswald. Oswald enjoyed managing his finances personally. Having someone else do it made him feel powerless and he didn’t like it one bit. But at last, he was done. Unfortunately, he didn’t like the new standings. That judge had not been lenient with the sentence, and neither had he been with the bail. Fifteen years for what the judge ruled as “assault.” Or, fifteen thousand guldens for release. Nothing less, as a man like Oswald was used to. It had stung.

_ Assault. Hmph. As if I don’t know how to properly assault someone and have to resort to poison. _

He glanced at the weapon he had hung on the wall of his study, below the clock. His beautiful sword. The sword that had seen him through the war with those blasted russians, french and poles. Those had been the days, fighting alongside Roman Per. In Oswald’s mind, Roman Per wouldn’t have lasted a week without him. It was only fair Oswald received the man’s fortune when he died. But no, some fellow from the wrong side of the family had to come in and ruin everything. What had Goldia ever done to deserve that wealth? She’d been nothing but trouble for her father, an embarrassment to the family. Including Oswald.

Thinking of her, his thoughts turned to the poison he had used on her. He wondered what it had been like for her. He certainly couldn’t relate; it hadn’t done anything to him, even though he’d taken in far more than her. It just went to show why he should’ve gotten Roman Per Die Heilige’s property and assets and not her.

_ The poison. What did that doctor call it again? Mind cough. That’s right. I wonder what I’ll do with what I have left over. _

Oswald glanced at his chest in the corner of the room. In doing so, he gave his killer the last piece of information he needed before he fired.

There was the sound of glass shattering and an ugly smack as a bolt buried itself in the back of Lord Die Heilige’s neck. He collapsed against the table, ruining the papers he’d spent most of the day on with his blood. He hadn’t made a sound with his voice in the last few seconds he’d had to use it.

By the time the guards came in, the chest had been opened, searched, and closed, leaving no indication it had ever been unlocked.

 

Harpae sat quietly with her hands in her lap, staring out across the vast, empty expanse beyond the stone wall she had placed a chair on. Her eyes saw nothing, but imagined everything of what it must be like being in Mia’s head right now. She’d know soon enough: Goldia could share memories with herself better than anyone could share with anyone else.

Weber, far off in the distance, straining because of how far away he was in reality to get to her, at first blessed and then cursed his luck as he saw that there was only one guard, but that it had to be the blind one.

_ Gott verdammt. Where’s the rest of her? _

He remembered that Mia was sleeping next to Goldia.  _ Ah. So the little Angel has taught her how to communicate like that. Fascinating. A shame she had to pick this blind one as her guard. You can’t fool blind people. _

Those who can’t see can hear far better than anyone who has the luxury of their eyes telling them about the world around them.

But being blind didn’t make you immune to a concoction like the one coating the small dart in Weber’s crossbow, as Harpae was about to find out.

 

It felt very strange to teach a grown woman anything for Goldia, but not for Fleta. Fleta was having a great time exploring the world of Mia’s mind with her, discovering the grand mansion she liked to live in. The building closely resembled her real home, but it had a few things the real one didn’t and was just larger in general. Furthermore, it was in the country and not in the city. In many ways, it reminded Goldia of her own home. She wondered what Harpae would think of it, had she been here and had she been able to see.

The house was mostly inspired by Gertrude’s idea of a marvelous house. She had a lot of imagination when it came to what that looked like, and Mia relied on it heavily to make the grand halls, stairways and corridors that connected the countless rooms.

Angela was the only reason the place wasn’t  so big it couldn’t support itself; she kept it realistic without making it too stuffy or too top-heavy, but didn’t impede Mia and Gertrude’s imagination otherwise. It was a truly gorgeous house, surrounded by a vast countryside of forests. She toured Goldia through it, and all of her enjoyed it immensely. Lisette got sidetracked playing the piano and they left her to it while they explored the rest of the home, her beautiful but occasionally eerie music filling the air.

But after some time, Goldia felt it was time to start back home. The longer she was outside her own head, the more nervous she got. This feeling was amplified by Lisette but dulled by Enjel, interestingly enough. But it made sense; Enjel was much more accustomed to being outside her own head. She approached Gertrude, Mia and Angela. Gertrude surprised her by speaking first.

“Yes, yes. You want to be gone.” She made a shooing motion. “Go on then.”

“ **Gertrude!** ” Mia and Angela rebuked her while Goldia realized that Gertrude had learned to listen to what one was thinking. She’d have to be careful with her parting advice.

“Listen, Mia…” she began. “It’s been fun exploring your mind with you, but as Gertrude said, I have to go back to mine soon.”

“That’s perfectly understandable. I’m amazed you even left yours in the first place, just to talk to me in here.”

“Yes, about that…” Goldia hesitated, clearing her thoughts. All of her selves stopped being separate for the time being as she focused herself. “I also came in here to warn you.”

“Warn?” Gertrude’s frown intensified. “I knew there was something more to this.”

“Let her finish.” Angela said quietly.

Gertrude quieted but you could still hear she was suspicious, as usual.

“Do you remember the hospital?” Goldia asked quietly.

All their faces darkened visibly. “ **Yes.** ”

“Do you remember the doctor who hurt you?”

_ She knows about that?  _ Angela thought.

“Yes. He was my doctor as well, for a time.” Goldia explained. “I assume he treated you just as badly?”

“He was a true monster!” Gertrude ranted. “He pretended he was some servant of God, and that we were possessed by some evil spirit. But I suppose, if you really think about it, we were…” she paused thoughtfully.

“Well, he’s still after you.” Goldia warned. “He threatened your brother that he would hurt you if he defended me in court today, but your brother didn’t let that stop him.”

“That sounds like my Thomas.” Mia said happily. Angela nodded. Gertrude said nothing. You couldn’t even hear her thoughts at that.

“But now that diseased doctor is coming for you, tonight most likely. He’s running out of time, and he has to move soon. You are at your most vulnerable when you’re asleep, but you’re at your least vulnerable inside the house. He has no power in your special place. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.” Goldia turned as Thomas’s sister silently took that in. “I have to go back to my own mind. Stay safe!” She called over her shoulder.

“Follow me.” Enjel called, appearing ahead of Goldia.

“Wait!” Mia called. Goldia turned back around and stopped. “You mean the house I live in or the house we just found in here?”

“This one.” Lisette answered, having entered view again. She pointed to the grand building Mia was currently standing in. “And remember: The power they have can be equated to and measured by the power you give it.”

Mia looked confused, Angela even more so, but Gertrude’s eyes widened in understanding. Lisette winked at her.

“Thank you, Lisette, I almost forgot!” Goldia said gratefully, starting to leave again. As she was exiting earshot, she called back, cupping her hands around her mouth: “Hold your memories close to your heart!”

 

Suddenly, the sound of glass shattering could be heard from upstairs. Thomas and Fritz both bolted up, knocking over the game they’d been playing as they did so. They rushed out of the room without a word to each other and ran up the stairs and down the hall, into the library.

Mia was awake and looking horrified at the glass sprayed all over her and Goldia, who was lying slightly less still than she normally did when asleep. Gently examining her, Fritz found that there was a small dart embedded in the flesh of her right shoulder, and it was coated with a substance so colorless, it was almost invisible. Mind cough, Fritz knew immediately.

Thomas calmed down his sister as Fritz scanned outside the window. He almost, but didn’t quite, miss the silhouetted figure of Doctor Roger Weber disappearing off a rooftop and to the streets and alleyways below, around the house.

_ He’s not going anywhere.  _ Fritz thought with a surge of anger.  _ I will end him. _

“Do you have a sword hanging anywhere?” He asked. He had utterly no experience with weapons of war of any kind, but he didn’t want to face Weber empty-handed.

“Yes. In the main hall, remember? Our father’s sword?” Thomas told him, speaking over his crying sister. “Why?”

Fritz did remember. A long, sleek looking blade. Fritz knew nothing about swords, but it looked dangerous to him. “The doctor is outside your home. I’m going to find him, and put a stop to this before he does any more harm.”

“You’re going to kill him?” Thomas asked as Fritz walked past him, heading for the door they’d left open.

“That’s probably what’ll happen, yes.” Fritz said. Although he was confident now, his fear started to climb as he actually lifted the blade from its case. He was going up against a man who’d been on the earth at least twice as long as him. Likely more. It was unlikely he didn’t know how to handle himself in a fight with someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

_ And I barely know which end of the sword I hold on to. What am I doing… _

But then he remembered that awful night weeks ago, when the witch had attacked Goldia. He had done nothing. He’d been useless. Even if he was likely going to get hurt, and as far as he knew, the witch could also be waiting for him out here, that wasn’t going to happen again. He’d stop them both if he had to, he resolved as he pushed the front door open and headed outside.

  
  


Chapter 32

 

Harpae couldn’t see anything. This wasn’t new, but it was certainly the only thing she could think about with the flurry of noises and feelings she was being swarmed with. She could hear voices - distressed ones, almost all of which sounded like they were about to die - and cutting, crushing and slamming noises, many of which cut off the screaming and the crying. All of the voices belonged to Goldia.

_ How many people are on this wall? _

Suddenly the stone surface of the wall below her feet felt colder than ice, almost burning her feet through her shoes. But her mounting fear and stress quickly melted it. Although Harpae’s world was a black, sightless one and she couldn’t see it, the worlds behind the wall were rapidly drained of color, and frozen in place, just as they had been last night after dinner.

_ It’s the poison - Ah!  _ Harpae clasped her hands to her head and sunk to her knees as a cold, sharp headache pierced Goldia’s mind.

_ It’s all a drug… This can’t work on me… This can’t work on me… Goldia is fine… She’s with Mia... _

In the cacophony of continuing screams and noises, she couldn’t hear the intruder entering through the gate he lifted up to pass under. Entering the madhouse he had created out of Goldia’s mind, he was amazed by the drug’s speed and effectiveness.

_ They aren’t even present, so it wastes no time in freezing them first and jumps straight to pouncing with horrid substitutes! _

He’d been worried it simply wouldn’t affect her, but now, looking at the poor blind girl scrabbling against the crenellations, trying to convince herself that none of the pain was real and that the sounds of her master suffering weren’t happening, he realized it had capitalized on her solitude well.

All around him, he could see countless depictions of that little angel as well as a pale haired and dressed girl with violet eyes tearing Goldia apart in hundreds of vicious ways. The sound was almost deafening, and to someone who relied wholly on their hearing to sense the world around them, their world had just become a horrifying mixture with only one ingredient: Failure to protect her charge, and failure to protect herself from herself. Weber couldn’t have hoped for better results. She couldn’t tell him to leave when she could hardly tell her own visions to. She didn’t even know he was here. She also didn’t know that another old enemy had joined him, which she might have been able to tell had she looked over the wall and been able to see his eyes turn gold.

_ A true feast. You’ve made a good start, Roger. Just make sure that you don’t lose four fifths of my prize. _

Weber touched the little cross on his shoulder, which began to glow a faint gold as a figure appeared before him, looking overwhelmingly pleased with the atmosphere.

“I won’t.” he promised.

“We shall see. After all, your real life is in danger and I suggest you break off temporarily to take care of it. I’ll take it from here.” the boy’s grin flashed.

Weber’s eyes widened. “Me? But how-”

Weber was interrupted by a voice that only he could hear, coming from outside.

“Weber! Where are you, you coward?” a man’s voice. That peasant man’s voice. He was looking for Weber in the alleyways.

Weber reluctantly left the opening he had bet so much on working just to leave again. But the demon could finish the job. There was no need for his involvement here. He’d just clean up Fritz and then attack Mia while the boy finished Goldia, however he planned to do that.

 

Fritz’s eyes scanned up and down the relatively clean alleys and corners, holding the sword tight in his right hand and stepping softly. Softly also being a relative term for a man like him.

“I know you’re around here somewhere, you monster!” Fritz called. He didn’t know, but he was almost certain. And if the doctor wasn’t here, that’d be even better.

But as Fritz nearly turned the corner, a sense of danger overtook him. A primitive, but incredibly important, feeling that if you took one, maybe two more steps in the wrong direction, you would almost certainly meet your death. It’s the same sense a deer sometimes experiences when an unseen bow is drawn, or a hidden crocodile’s mouth unhinges slightly, ready to strike.

Fritz decided to bait the danger out. He silently bent and picked up a small, smelling piece of rubbish and, counting just audibly enough for a potential ambusher to hear, “1, 2, 3…” he tossed it out of the alleyway and into the building opposite. It barely left his hand before it was pinned to the opposite wall with a heavy crossbow bolt.

Fritz knew a crossbow took time to reload, so he took his opportunity and rushed around the corner. Overcoming his surprise at the doctor’s golden eyes, Fritz raised his sword and charged with an angry yell. Weber quickly threw down his crossbow, drew a pair of knives from his belt and dodged to the side, lashing out with both blades. But Fritz had run too fast and he was already out of range for Weber’s counter. The two men stood circling each other in the dying light of the Viennese street.

_ Don’t try to say that you’ve already taken Goldia from him, because you haven’t. You’ve only taken one of her. But feel free to promise him you’ll take them all, one by one, and that there’s nothing he can do about it.  _ Came a laughing voice in the doctor’s head.

“It’s over, Weber! You have lost!” Fritz shouted. Not because he was confident but because he needed confidence. And Weber could tell.

“Forget it.” Weber replied coldly. “You are nothing. You have no idea how to use that weapon. This fight is already over. The only thing that will keep me from slicing you apart is luck. And already, the only thing keeping me from capturing your wretched niece is time. And I have a lot of time.”

Fritz swallowed as they continued circling.  _ I’m so foolish…  _ He thought.  _ But at least he’s busy with me and not with Goldia. _

“Do you even know how many people I’ve killed? How many I’ve killed  _ today? _ ” Weber gloated. He was capitalizing as much as possible on Fritz’s fear. “You are just adding to a heap.”

Fritz ignored him, noticing the cross dangling from his raised right wrist. “Why do you wear that? You’re clearly no god-fearing man.”

Weber smirked, showing his teeth. “I’m the most god-fearing man you’ll ever meet in your short life.”

Fritz was now confused as well. Weber might as well have just attacked now and been done with it. But he wanted to milk this moment. He always did. He had with Rozenmarine, but sadly hadn’t been able to do so with Oswald. Fritz would have to do.

“You hurt people. You kill people. How dare you call yourself a christian?” Fritz demanded.

“Because I believe in God, without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Then you know where you’re going when I’m finished with you!” Fritz shouted, blustering through his confusion at the contradiction.

“You see,” Weber explained, “I fear him with all my heart, so I plan on simply never meeting him. Unlike you.” Weber leapt forward towards Fritz, who panicked and waved his sword everywhere, trying to knock away the knives before they hit him. But Weber had just stopped in front of him and laughed. “You fool. A child playing with a toy.” Weber dashed away and around the corner.

It was always so fun to watch a hunter turn into the hunted, and the original hunted pretending to still be hunted. Watching Fritz’s fear fight with his resolve. But the disappointing part was that resolve won. Decisively. Weber unlocked a back door to a house he deemed unoccupied and hid in the basement, locking the door behind him. He had some work to do while Fritz’s fear rebuilt.

 

Thomas’s mind was not in the moment as he comforted his sister, glancing occasionally at Goldia when she twitched from time to time. Mia had stopped crying and was mostly whimpering, having pulled herself and Goldia out of view of the window and demanding he shut it and lock it firmly. The couch was large enough for them to sit at opposite ends and be out of view of the outside, even if the window had been open.

“Do you think she’s going to be alright?” she asked, her voice full of worry. Goldia had started to look lost in the distance when the glass had shattered and Mia woke up.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Thomas reassured her automatically. He was full of worry for Fritz. Thomas felt had to get out there and help him take down the doctor, but he didn’t want to leave Mia alone, although Fritz was rapidly gaining ground on his list of priorities.

“Mia,” he finally began. “I need to go.”

Mia’s face changed. She wiped her eyes and was much more businesslike. “Alright then. Run off. I can take care of myself and I can take care of Goldia just fine without you.”

Thomas sighed. “Alright, Gertrude. Just know that I’m out helping Fritz, alright?”

“Very well. Goodbye.” Mia shooed him away.

Thomas stood and left. For once he was glad for a Gertrude moment from Mia. He picked up his small pistol from his office and headed out the door.

 

“Hello again, Gertrude.”

In Mia’s head, Gertrude spun around and saw Weber standing there, between her and the house, where the other two Mias were. She snarled. Mia and Angela shrunk away into the front door, watching nervously through the window. In the real world, Mia entered a trance-like state, staring sightlessly into the floor.

“What are you doing here?” Gertrude demanded.

“I’m here to fulfill a promise I made to your foolish brother.” He drew his two knives. Weber didn’t have time to draw this one out as much, and besides, he’d already done it plenty with Mia. Especially Gertrude. Oh, Gertrude. The suffering he’d put her through had only amplified her sharp features and equally sharp personality. But now it was time to end her. He charged.

Gertrude brought up a hand and slapped one of his hands down, but the other knife went into her arm she had extended, and she shouted in pain. She brought up her other arm and punched him in the jaw. The abuse she’d already suffered at his hands made that wound much less significant, although it did weaken her right arm. She pulled the dagger out of her arm as he recoiled with a grunt and threw it at him. But he caught it in the air just in front of his nose.

_ That was close…  _ he thought, slowly lowering the knife to his side again.  _ My, she’s bleeding everywhere but she doesn’t even care… _

“No, I don’t.  Verschwinde!” Gertrude shouted. She brought up her arm and threw a punch at his forehead.

In Weber’s momentary surprise that she had heard his thoughts, he didn’t react in time and was knocked back on his rump by the blow, nearly dropping and falling on his own weapons. He stood up with both bared, but decided on a more devilish strategy.

He turned and started sprinting to the house. Mia and Angela screamed.

_ Ugh, the bully.  _ Gertrude thought, running after him and ignoring her bleeding arm. She remembered what Goldia, more specifically Lisette, had said.

_ “The power they have can be equated to and measured by the power you grant it.” _

_ Mia better tell him that that house has the power to be off-limits. _

 

Goldia was starting to feel sick to her stomach. She looked ahead at Enjel, who she was trailing behind. “Enjel, are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Yes. Can’t you feel us getting closer?” Enjel also sounded like she was feeling ill, which she was.

“I don’t usually feel sicker the closer I get to home. Quite the opposite, actually.” Fleta remarked.

“Well, I didn’t feel great the first time I did this either, okay?” Enjel replied.

“Of course you didn’t. You had a wound the size of Gertrude’s attitude.”

“ **Fleta!** ” Goldia and Lisette snapped.

“What? I just don’t like the feel-” Fleta began.

_ Don’t come any closer.   _ Harpae’s trembling voice could be heard in each of their heads.

 

Chapter 33

 

Goldia stopped.

**_Harpae?_ ** They wondered, unnerved by the voice Harpae had used in their heads. The last time Goldia had ever heard that layered, corrupted sounding voice had been a long time ago, when Harpae had slapped her. She remembered it now. Harpae’s normally blue eyes almost glittering red, with a dark cloud hanging over her pale forehead.

_ “Am I that… i n s i g n i f i c a n t  to you?”  _ Harpae had said the word slowly, deliberately, drillingly.

Goldia had been scared of Harpae then and she was starting to feel the same way now. And then they heard Harpae again.

_ Stay away, my girl… this isn’t a scene you’d like to witness… _

The words sounded familiar to Goldia, but she didn’t know where from. At any rate, Harpae clearly needed them. The four merged into Goldia for the time being and moved forward. They could see the gate in the distance.

_ Harpae, what happened? We heard glass shattering and- _

_ Please… leave me be… _

_ I need to come home, Harpae. I’m sorry, but you can’t just keep me out of my own head.  _ Goldia said firmly.

Silence from Harpae. The silence continued as Goldia nervously entered the gate, which was wide open. Once inside, however, she came to a complete and immediate stop.

Corpses of her were everywhere. They were scattered and mangled and torn apart, bleeding all over the place. She almost threw up. Steeling herself, she turned and walked up the steps to the top of the wall, hoping to find Harpae there. But the Maiden of Pristine Eyes was not at her post. Goldia looked over the field of gore and death and saw the worlds of her mind. But they were all grey. Grey, just as they’d been last night. And at that moment, Goldia realized what had happened.

Mind cough. And that likely meant Weber or Oswald was around here somewhere.

But she’d been asleep. How’d she eaten it? It didn’t matter right now. Right now she needed to find Harpae. She rushed to the door with the grey but normally blue lamp hanging dimly over it.

_ Harpae?! Are you okay? What happened to you? _

No response as Goldia bolted up the steps, past the large, colorless windows, and into Harpae’s mansion. Then, after she reached the top of the tall spiral staircase and entered the long, moonlit hallway to Harpae’s bedroom, she started to hear something.

Crying.

Fritz’s heart was pounding as he fruitlessly continued searching.

_ Where in the blazes is he?  _ He thought.  _ I can’t let him focus… but I don’t stand a chance against him. He’s too experienced. _

_ Why didn’t he just kill me? He could have, if he’d wanted… _

Fritz’s fear suddenly shifted to anger.  _ That snake. He thinks he can play with his food. Let’s see him feint, just one more time. Then we’ll see where that sick mentality gets him. _

Weber was surprised and impressed that Mia had had the courage to flesh out her mind a little more, after what he’d put her through in it. It was probably Goldia who helped her think of it.

He ran up to the front door, then to the side so he stood in front of the window Mia and Angela were hiding behind. He brought up his foot to kick the glass in, but as a surprise, spun around and threw one of his knives at Gertrude. This one caught her off guard, and in her right shoulder. But while it bought him some time as it temporarily stunned her and she slowed to pull it out, he brought up his foot again and this time smashed the window, spraying glass all over the occupants. Mia and Angela screamed and ran from the front door.

_ Oh for goodness sake, Mia, what have you done?  _ Gertrude thought to them.  _ He’s not allowed in there, remember? _

**_That doesn’t seem to be stopping him!_ **  They both replied.

Gertrude almost wanted to hit them as she held the knife in her left hand and jumped in after Weber. They had clearly been more friendly but listened far less to Goldia than she had.  As usual. She was always the only one actually listening, even if she didn’t sugarcoat everything like they did. She sighed internally, even though she was quite literally involved with saving Mia and therefor her own mind from a psychopath with a knife.

Weber felt something strange as Gertrude entered the house. It was as if the house was thirty three percent firmly off-limits now. He tried to shrug it off, but as he chased Mia and Angela up the steps and ran from Gertrude, he could start feeling the disinvitation’s effect on his speed and even his resolve.

_ I shouldn’t be here… _

_ of course I should, I have a job to do… _

_ I’m trespassing… _

_ of course I am, I have a job to do… _

_ I can’t keep this up for long… _

_ then I’d better hurry up, I have a job to do. _

The crying immediately ceased when Goldia’s hand touched the doorknob.

As Goldia gently opened the door to Harpae’s room, she immediately noticed something wrong. The candles lighting paths through the large, dark room were out. Strangely, the paths were still lit.  But as color was slowly returning to the world around her, she realized she’d been wrong.

The candles weren’t out. They were glowing a very dark red.

“Harpae?” she called out with her voice. Then, receiving no answer, she thought instead.

_ Harpae? Where are you? What happened? _

A response.  _ I see you’ve come. I’m sorry, miss. _

_ For what? _

In the dim red light, Harpae walked forward out of the darkness, facing in Goldia’s direction, but not directly at Goldia. She looked the same. For some reason, Goldia had been worried something had happened to her eyes, but she saw with relief that Harpae’s eyes were as she’d left her, although there were tearstains on her face.

But her face was full of shame. She looked like she had failed. On Harpae’s face, that expression was so depressing. Not only that, but she radiated the feeling. Goldia certainly felt bad for leaving her alone, and being around her ironically didn’t help.

“Harpae? What’s wrong? What are you sorry about?”

Harpae didn’t respond. Goldia thought instead.

_ Harpae? _

_ Yes, miss?  _ Harpae’s thoughts felt like they were hanging their heads.

Goldia stepped forward and took Harpae’s hand.  _ Why are you sorry? You’ve done nothing wrong. What happened to you? Is Weber or that monster still around? _

_ No… I’ve just…  _ A tear fell on their hands.  _ I made the same mistake again. I failed you, and I… blinded myself… even further… _

_ But… you’re already blind. How did you… _

But then Goldia realized. Harpae hadn’t responded to her voice, and hadn’t been facing in her direction as accurately as she used to. The candles were red.

Harpae was deaf.

_ Oh, Harpae…  _ Goldia squeezed her hand sympathetically. Another tear fell on their joined fingers as Goldia hung her head forward and touched Harpae’s.  _ I’m so sorry… _

_ You did nothing wrong, Goldia… I did what I’ve done before when things were too hard for me to bear seeing them. Like Oedipus Rex, I thought, “Why should I have eyes? Why, when nothing I saw was worth seeing?” _

_ Oh, Harpae… _

_ And so, you see, when I was alone, and assailed from all sides and my world was made into a horrific mixture of sound, I did the same to my hearing. Aiding in my hasty mistake was the same unworldly boy I’ve fought so hard for so long… he and the drug made me forget all the progress I’ve made, all the success you’ve taught me I’ve had… _

Goldia hugged Harpae close.  _ You’re blind and deaf now… this isn’t right. Can’t I heal you somehow? _

_ I was rather hoping you could, but can you remember me when I could see? When I could hear? _

_ I can easily remember you when you could hear; that was less than an hour ago.  _ Goldia answered.  _ But I can’t remember very well when you could see… _

_ Please try, miss… please… I don’t want to be deaf or blind anymore. _

**_I will._ **

 

Chapter 34

 

Mia and Angela rushed into the kitchen and slammed the door behind them. There were plenty of potential weapons in there, mainly the knives, but mostly thanks to Angela, they were too timid to use them. Gertrude slowed to a halt behind Weber, who turned to face her and put his back to the locked kitchen door.

Gertrude could tell he had decided to put an end to her, now that she was weakened by her wounds and by chasing him. Then he would move on to the real target, and be gone.

Memories of what he’d put her through flashed through her head. The torture she had endured as his “patient”. Whatever weakness he thought she was afflicted with at the moment was more than compensated for by the rage she felt as she tightly gripped the knife covered with her own blood in her left hand. This man, this monster, was trying to hurt her again. Fatally this time. He was trying to hurt Mia. And for no other reason than to satisfy petty revenge for being beaten fair and square in a court he had been responsible for taking place. Weber could hear her thoughts, and was indignant.

“That’s not very fair of you. Oswald’s the fool who took it to the justice system’s attention.”

“And you’re the reason Mia’s brother, my brother, was afraid to do his duty. And now you’ve come to finish off the same hapless woman you never should have targeted in the first place!”

In anger, Weber raised the knife in his right hand, and as Gertrude brought her armed left hand (which was not her dominant hand) up to block it, the cross dangled from his wrist.

“You’re no christian.” she mocked, lowering her left hand and taking a step back, although he paused to answer.

“I’m the most faithful christian I have ever known, and that you will ever meet.” he protested.

Gertrude laughed. “You’re a corrupt, sick exorcist and a killer. You insult God with your cross. Don’t you believe that you will burn for what you’ve done?”

“My cross keeps me safe from him.”

“How can you-“ Gertrude began, cutting herself off to catch him napping.

Quicker than she ever could have with her right hand, as her left hand was naturally closer, she slashed her knife through the air under Weber’s wrist, and with a clatter, the cross fell to the ground, upside down from his perspective, right side up from hers.

He shouted in surprise. “How dare-” but he cut himself off before Gertrude did by knocking away her clumsy follow-up swing with his knife. She quickly kicked out and got him square in the knee, and he stumbled backward, grunting in pain as she hastily bent down to pick up his regalia. But as her fingers closed around the rosary, a sharp pain shot through her as a knife was plunged straight down into her back. She fell forward, curling herself around the rosary, refusing to let it go.

Angela and Mia watched with horror as he retrieved both knives from her and started kicking her, and threatening to use his blades if she didn’t let go.

Mia didn’t know what to do. Angela was too sensitive, too afraid to do anything. She and Mia had often pushed Gertrude away because of how rude she typically was to people, how hard it was for her to get on good terms with others. People liked talking to Angela. They went out of their way to be nice to and care for her, especially Thomas. But now, the cloud of timidness and hesitation Angela had built around her mind was penetrated by a single message from Gertrude. It was something she never said, not even once, not even during the horrible week under Weber’s care at the hospital.

_ Help me. Please. _

Mia had had enough. She pushed Angela away and grabbed a rolling pin. She opened the door and swung it as hard as she could, and the Christian turned around just in time for it to smack solidly into his face. It knocked him backwards and onto his back, his weapons clattering across the floor as he struggled to keep himself conscious and his face started bleeding.

Gertrude shuddered on the floor and opened her arms to Mia, who promptly took the rosary in her trembling fingers. Weber watched with blurry and painful horror as she dropped it and crushed it with her rolling pin, the dark little wooden splinters spreading everywhere. The last thing Weber saw was Mia standing over him, looking horrified by the wound she had inflicted. Gertrude wasn’t moving, and Angela joined Mia and stared at him as he shattered into hundreds of pieces and shards of reflectionless glass.

 

Weber jolted upright in the dark cellar, and cradled his face in his hands where Mia had hit him. His eyes shifted to green once more. He realized as he looked down at the empty rosary on his real wrist that his eyes would never be gold again.

_ What have you done?!  _ He tried to shout mentally at Mia. But his thoughts felt trapped inside his own head, a feeling he hadn’t felt in over a hundred years.

The ache in his head subsided and he took both his knives with him. Mia may have beaten him, but she couldn’t stop him from eviscerating that meddling german farmer. He put his hand on the knob of the door leading back out into the alleys and turned, expecting it to unlock and open itself. But it didn’t. His panic increased as he realized he had to focus much harder now to use his magic. And it was getting harder every second. This must have been what had happened to Rozenmarine, he realized. She broke her own regalia. She basically killed herself, but at the same time cut her soul off from the demonic master she had served so long. Weber realized his soul was free too. He would have been elated if this hadn’t meant that now his soul was at God’s mercy. Soon he would turn old and fade away. Desperate thoughts of repentance swirled through his mind as he started prowling for Fritz.

_ So these feelings are why that witch spent the rest of her life returning that little girl.  A pathetic redemption really. But better than anything I’ll ever manage. _

He had to do something about what Mia had just done to him. She had literally broken his regalia, the reason he was still alive, his source of power, his very life support at this point. But he didn’t know any way to replace it.

With a sinking feeling, Weber realized his life was only hours from ending. The sun had almost completely gone down, and so had his time on this earth. He didn’t need to play nicely anymore. He could just kill them all. No more of this exhausting mental fighting. No more cat and mouse games.

_ Well, perhaps just one more.  _ he thought as he glimpsed Fritz nervously turning the corner ahead of the doctor out of sight.

 

“Can’t I just will you to see and hear?”Enjel asked, remembering all the wounds she’d helped heal that way, especially the ones she had inflicted. They were all on the elevator, traveling slowly down to the very bottom of the mansion, where Goldia was hoping to find a memory for Harpae. She had an idea for restoring Harpae’s hearing and sight, but she listened to and answered Enjel’s.

“She can’t hear you, remember? And besides, this runs much deeper than that. This disability  _ was  _ her will.”

Enjel sighed. She didn’t have an answer for that.

Harpae knew what Goldia was thinking. She hoped it would work better than when Harpae had tried to do it on her own.

Goldia was trying to restore Harpae’s sight and hearing by remembering her when she’d been able to do it. Harpae had tried it once, and it had worked, but it had been exhausting to use a memory to see. Perhaps now it would be easier if they all helped her.

Goldia could have just used any out of several recent memories to heal Harpae’s hearing, but Harpae had begged to only find one for her to recollect, one where she could see and hear.

Finally, the elevator opened with a small ding of its bell, and revealed a horrifying scene very similar to the one Goldia had been greeted with when she’d first come back through the gate: corpses of her, scattered everywhere. These ones almost all had scissors stabbed into them, and everyone but Lisette kept glancing at them and then back at her as they solemnly stepped over the mess to the Proscenium.

But the Proscenium was gone. They had stepped into a massive, collapsed and smoking heap of wood and curtains and chairs, below ground level of Harpae’s world. There was no trace of the show wagon, and no long, scrolling theatre film paper to recall. The place had been forgotten.

_ No, not forgotten… _ Goldia thought. Lisette completed the train of thought for her.

_ Burned. Taken away. _

_ Weber. Where is he?  _ Enjel demanded from Harpae.

_ Calm down, Enjel. Harpae’s been through a lot.  _ Goldia reproved her.

_ He’s not here. He left shortly after he came.  _ Harpae answered.

_ Someone else must still be here.  _ Lisette asserted.  _ We’ll have to be careful. _

_ The boy may not have left.  _ Harpae thought.  _ He was here. If not for him, I would not have silenced my hearing. _

**_We’ll be watching for him._ ** Lisette and Enjel shared.

_ What do we do now?  _ Goldia asked, disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to use the theatre to help Harpae remember when she could see or hear.

_ Follow me. There’s got to be something in my world about her, lying around, disappearing.  _ Lisette led them back to the elevator, up to Harpae’s room, and out onto the dock. Upon seeing the boat, Lisette almost had a flashback. She hadn’t seen this boat, none of her reflections had, except once. She didn’t remember when or how, but she knew she’d seen it once before. It was important, and she was certain Harpae could use it, once they uncovered it.

Lisette got in the boat, and helped Harpae in after her.

_ Do you recognized this boat? _

Harpae felt around the inside of the small wooden rowboat with her hands.  _ Yes. I used this sometimes to breath the peaceful lake air, even though it’s pitch black except for the lamp. It’s still there, isn’t it? _

_ Yes. The lamp is hanging at the front of the boat. It’s still there. _

_ Wonderful. I remember having this boat for a long time, before I was… blind. I don’t remember anything I did with it though, do you? _

_ That’s what I’m trying to do, Harpae. _

After they’d all climbed into the small boat, it left the dock without needing to be told. It knew where they wanted to go.

“Where are we going, Lisette?” Fleta asked nervously. “It’s dark out here.”

“I’m trying to help myself and Harpae remember something she did out on this lake between our worlds. Something I, or one of me, did.”

Fleta shivered. “Sounds worrying.”

Lisette shrugged. “It probably was worrying, for Harpae. But she could see back then, I’m sure of it. And if she could see, she could hear.”

In the darkness, they could see a dim, cobblestone shore with ugly, torn and damp streamers strewn about. The water was especially murky. This was all expected. This was normal.

What wasn’t normal was what Lisette noticed when she was helping Harpae out of the boat and she tried to think  _ Come on, Harpae, we’re here  _ to her. It was as if Harpae’s mind was a different, unconnected place all of a sudden. Like it had been until the day Goldia had woken up. They couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts.

“What’s going on?” Lisette said aloud. “I can’t feel anything from you all. Can you?”

_ Can you?  _ She sent.

“I don’t know. Try thinking me something.” Fleta said.

“I just did.”

“Oh.”

Everyone looked worried, except Harpae, who looked expectant. She was waiting for one of them to share what was going on, but she couldn’t hear what they were thinking. She looked like she was concentrating for a moment, and after a few moments, she looked like she had realized as well. Quickly, she felt around until she touched Lisette, and they held each other’s hands firmly.  

“What’s going on? I feel so… disconnected, like I was when I was little and had a dollhouse…” Fleta said, holding a hand to her head.

“Something’s not right.” Goldia said.

_ He’s here. _ Lisette stated.  _ But he’s not welcome. We simply need to find him, and cast him out. _

Just then, they heard a familiar giggle coming from the darkness, and footsteps. And then, startlingly due to his chalk white skin and exposed teeth whiter than the coldest snow, a familiar strange personage appeared out of the dark. He held no wand. Almost, but not quite, quick enough to surprise him, he was grinning unflinchingly down the length of a pair of golden scissors and an equally golden scythe. He laughed, and held up his hands placatingly. And then he spoke. When he did, he could be heard inside and outside of your head. It was unnerving for everyone, except Harpae, who was startled by hearing his voice and held Lisette even tighter.

“Now, now, you silly munters, I know I’ve outstayed my welcome, and I’ll be leaving. But before I go, Goldia,” the name sounded sickenly sweet coming through his teeth, “you should do yourself a favor and give me the pleasure of some parting words. Besides, I have the answers to several questions you have so loudly been pondering. And if at any point you decide to cut me off, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

Goldia brushed past them all, facing her oldest enemy. “What is it?” she said calmly.

The boy’s smile did not change as the weapons were lowered and he was now facing only one personage. He began, addressing the girl with the cherry red eyes and the name bathed in gold.

“First, I would like to extend something I have never extended to anyone, alive, dead or otherwise, in all my long, patient existence.” He stretched forth his hand. Goldia took one look at it and ignored it. His grin widened and he laughed, taking his hand back. “See? Simply genius. You’ve uncovered my secret, my one true weakness. I extend unto you, Goldia Die Heilige, my congratulations. You have learned the power of learned helplessness, and more importantly, the true magnitude of the power you and all souls have over themselves, and the severe disadvantage a questionable poet like myself really is at cracking through that. The thing is,” he laughed again, “no one ever realizes it’s as simple as refusing! There’s one simple truth that all beings like myself are bound by: We only have as much power as mortals tell us we have. And until this wonderful visit the Maiden of Pristine Eyes allowed me, I would never have guessed how you found it.”

“The witch discovered it too.” Goldia answered.

“You told her that. And look where it got her. She’s dead, but she’s free, in a sense. A shame, really. But you, you have a long life ahead of you, full of happiness. You’ve found something everyone in this world of any interest to me has always wanted: A single chance at happiness.”

“How did I do it?” Goldia asked, testing him. “What did you find?”

“It’s written all over your face!” he laughed once more. He did that a lot, and he was in a good mood. “Oh, Elise! Elise, Elise, Elise! She really did think she could fool me, didn’t she? As if I would never discover how she used her connection to you to give you one last message before she left. A note on that lazy-eyed doll!” another laugh. “And my goodness! The less alive a soul is, the more cryptic it becomes, and this message she gave you is certainly proof of that! Well done deciphering that riddle.”

“Thank you.” Goldia said, keeping her voice neutral.

“Sigh… you’re so bland…” he shook his head in mock weariness. “Now, I’m assuming you’re here trying to clear up Miss Harpae’s eyes and ears?”

“Yes. Why did you burn the proscenium?”

“I didn’t feel like leaving my things behind in your head. You’ll also find the ballroom theatre and the Midnight Circus in a similar state. The back part, anyway. The tent itself was simply too beautiful for me to burn. But in a way, I’m also doing you a favor.”

Goldia raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“You see, you’re trying to solve a problem as deep as a self-inflicted disability like Harpae’s by recalling a memory. It’s understandable, of course. It’s the way you’ve healed most of the wounds you’ve inflicted on yourself. But this runs much deeper than that. While your solution would work, it would only do so as long as the memory lasted. I have the memory you’re looking for, and I’ll give it to you now. But allow me to finish before I do. You’ll not have much time with it before you’ll have to find another way to heal Harpae, and you don’t want to waste it with me!” he laughed. “But don’t worry, I have only one more thing to say. I must ask something of you, Goldia.”

She was immediately on guard. “What is it?”

“Don’t ever, ever, for as long as you live and beyond, come to me again. Forget I exist. For if you don’t, I will have no choice but to try again. Wouldn’t we all be a crowd of poor munters then, no? I’ve had quite enough to do with your family, and your family has had quite enough to do with me. Just let me rest from you. Don’t tempt me.”

Goldia stared into his face, penetrating the hair covering his eye. She stared into it for a long time, until she realized just how much nothingness she was gazing into. Her answer was resounding.

“ **We’ll never hear from each other again.** ”

The boy smiled. “ **No, we will not. Hold your memories close to your heart.** ” He turned to leave. “ **Auf wiedersehen!** ”

 

_ Let’s see what he left you.  _ Lisette thought with Harpae, sharing the memory. They both saw it, from Lisette’s perspective, for it was her memory. Harpae had long erased the event from hers.

Harpae was out in the boat, in the distance. She was holding something, and looking around. Lisette scrambled closer to the edge of the coast, hungry, her rusty scissors making a horrid scraping noise as she nearly fell into the water peering at the distant figure. But Lisette still couldn’t get a good view, and so she jumped in the water and started swimming. If she drowned, that would have been fine. This was merely a reflection, and it did not care either way. It just had to know what this mysterious blue-dressed girl was doing, and what she was holding.

She nearly made it to the boat, but did not. Just before exhaustion and hunger overcame her and her face went underwater forever, she saw what Harpae was holding: A telescope. She’d been looking through it. And she had turned, hearing the sound of water, but too late to see anything but an ominous pair of scissors floating in the black water.

Harpae opened her eyes. She could see. Goldia allowed her to see them all, one by one. Harpae’s eyes filled with tears and she spoke, hearing her choking voice as she related her joy.

“I was right.” she said happily to Goldia first. “Your hair is brown, a beautiful brown. Oh my… I’d guessed, but I’d never been sure… even if you’d told me, I would never have seen how beautiful it looks…” she turned to Fleta.

“My, how you’ve grown!” Fleta blushed.

“And Lisette, you’re as beautiful as your heart.” she embraced the Sleeping Maiden of Horrors happily. Then, turning to Enjel, she gave a warm smile. “And you, Enjel, have come a long way. I’m very proud of you.”

Enjel nodded gratefully. She hadn’t realized until now how much the Maiden of Pristine Eyes’s approval meant to her.

“Well, speak!” she said suddenly. “I want to hear your voices!”

They all laughed together. It was exactly the sound Harpae had missed the most in the short time she’d been deaf. But she could feel her senses fading, slowly. The Strange Boy had not been lying. They had to find another way to restore her permanently.

Unfortunately, if her uncle Fritz were to die now, she’d sleep through it. And at the moment, unbeknownst to her, that was exactly what was trying to happen.

Fritz turned around as he heard exaggerated footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Weber sprinting towards him, knives drawn and death in his eyes. Fritz almost panicked, but he steeled himself.

_ It’s going to be a feint. It’s going to be a feint. It’s going to be a feint. _

Fritz stood his ground, and when the doctor began to swing both knives at Fritz’s chest, but stopped just before they got there, he heard a stabbing sound. For a moment Weber hought he’d accidentally stabbed Fritz. Looking down, he realized he now had a sword going through his abdomen, on the left side. It was as if time stopped as both men were unsure what to do next. Fritz wasn’t sure if he had won, and Weber was recovering from his surprise at being stabbed.

Weber moved first. He lashed out with both knives, slicing Fritz ‘s chest superficially but painfully and knocking the man on his back, grunting as blood started soaking his shirt. Weber tried to throw, but ended up dropping,  both knives to the hard stone alley ground. Fritz tried to stand up but the doctor kicked him hard in the face, a kick fueled with all the rage of a man whose supposedly helpless target had done some real damage. While Fritz struggled to maintain consciousness, Weber gripped the protruding sword’s handle and pulled with all his strength. He yelled and powered through the pain as the sword withdrew. Then, magic worth thirty years of living was expended to close the wound. Looking hideously old and frail, the doctor held the bloody weapon over Fritz, who was looking blurrily up at him, raising his hands to protect himself. Weber laughed an ugly, ancient laugh and kicked him in the face again, smacking the back of his head into the hard ground. Fritz was very nearly knocked out. But he could still hear the mad man’s rant.

“You’ve taken everything from me!” Weber shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. His voice was rendered no less threatening by its new elderly quality. “Without you, none of this would have happened! You’ve taken away my single chance at happiness!”

Fritz mumbled something incomprehensible.

“What was that?” Weber demanded.

“You… did that… yourself…” Fritz managed through his dwindling consciousness and pain.

Weber raised the sword with a savage cry. Like an axe.

But then the sound of a gunshot split the air, and Weber took one last look at the sun as it finally disappeared from view before collapsing to the ground, the sword clattering harmlessly away. Thomas, standing with a small pistol in his hand, smoke curling from the barrel, was the last thing Fritz saw before he surrendered himself to unconsciousness.

 

Chapter 35

 

It was nighttime in the quieting city of Vienna. The moon was up, and clouds silently crossed the dim sky outside the window of Thomas Schneider’s occupied study. He was sitting across from a bandaged Fritz who had awoken from the punishment to his head Weber had given him a few hours ago, and a Goldia who looked deep in thought with her uncle with what he’d just told them.

Weber had died, his body rotting alarmingly fast after Thomas had shot him. He had stopped decaying when he was little more than a skeleton, over a century old. Thomas had taken Fritz inside, and bandaged him up. Then he’d contacted the city watch and had them take Weber’s body to the city morgue (and gotten very strange looks from them when they saw that it was mostly a skeleton), then gone to the court to handle all the legal matters.

The court had no issue with accepting that Weber’s death had been perfectly justified. They trusted Thomas, they trusted Fritz, and they could follow up with a brief inquiry tomorrow, before the witness left. Thomas was not charged with murder or any crime whatsoever.

Weber had had no family, no heirs. But when they’d looked at his will, it dictated that all his estate (which consisted of a house much like Thomas’s and not much else) go to a man who hadn’t been seen in Vienna for over twenty years, named Horwitz Muller. His existence could not be verified by any sources, and so he was discarded as an invalid beneficiary. So, Doctor Roger Weber’s finances were given to the Viennese General Hospital he had worked for.

While he was at the courthouse, Thomas also discovered that Oswald Die Heilige had been assassinated little less than an hour before Weber had attacked Thomas’s home. The court was primarily suspicious of him, Goldia, Fritz, and Weber, but they had no solid evidence that it was any of them. It was all circumstance and conjecture. They all could have a motive to kill him, they all had the opportunity and the means to assassinate him. But without proof, the investigation went cold for now. The court would likely waste money over the next few weeks trying to find a lead and finding nothing. Oswald had simply been assassinated by someone, and that was that.

As for his wealth’s destination, he had no children, no wife, and no extended family except for his brother-in-law and niece. His will was incomplete; he’d been waiting for when he had a family of his own to finish it, and designate it to them. All it declared was that ten percent of his finances were to be given to the Austrian Military. He’d been a patriotic man, had fought in the army, and believed in supporting the might of his country. But that still left a large amount of money and his property behind, and through family ties, they could now go to either Goldia Die Heilige or Fritz Leidl. At this point, Thomas had left the court and come home for the night, and had awoken Fritz to discuss the matter with him and his niece. Thomas rarely looked forward to being the lawyer tasked with sorting out a dispute of inheritance, but he doubted these two would have a dispute.

But now was the moment of truth for the two. He was particularly watching Fritz. The man would be even more tempted than he’d ever been before. While he had made no designs on taking Goldia’s fortune, he might act differently if it was something that didn’t necessarily belong to her yet.

Fritz spoke first, wincing from the bandage on his forehead where Weber had kicked him. “I might have wanted that when I was a little younger, but I like where I live, and I don’t have any clue how to manage money. I think Goldia should have it.”

“But what about your children?” Goldia asked. “Wouldn’t they appreciate it when they came along?”

Fritz paused, thinking. “I would think so. But I’ll already have plenty by then; I don’t think I’ll ever talk you out of the money you’re already planning on giving me and I’m a hard worker; I’m self sufficient and my children will be too.”

Goldia frowned. “Do you want the house or not?”

“Well…” Fritz sighed. “No.”

“Why not?” Thomas asked, confused.

“Why would I? I mean, I’m happy to take some of his money with me, but I live in Keifurburg, and I never wanted to live in a city. You don’t even live in the city, Goldia.”

“That’s true.” Goldia thought for a moment, wondering what on earth she would do with all that money. She was about as informed on finance as her uncle; it had never been her responsibility. But then she had an idea.

“I will take the house then. Mr. Schneider, I would like to dedicate it to be an orphanage. Would you help me see that through?” she asked. She would never be able to spend all that money on herself, and so she wanted to help someone else. Fritz didn’t want it, and the Scheiders were already going to be paid well, so she wanted to make a place for children who were going through what she had that wasn’t an insane asylum, a hospital, or somewhere worse that she had been spared from by her status.

Thomas was pleasantly surprised. “Ah, I can help you with that bit of philanthropy. Shouldn’t be too difficult to oversee, although you are still legally a child.”

“Thank you.” She said. Fritz looked relieved. But then another question arose from him and he turned to Goldia.

“What about you? Where will you live now?”

“Why, with you in Keifurburg. I’m not old enough to live on my own yet.” She answered, as if it was obvious, which Fritz had thought it was until Thomas had brought it up. But seeing that she had been on the same page about it after all put his and Thomas’s concerns to rest. Fritz nodded, his assumption validated.

“I will arrange with the court to have it maintained and protected in your absence.” Thomas offered.

“That’s very appreciated.” Goldia nodded with a smile.

 

Gertrude came out of the house and started to cross the large, green yard to the gazebo where Mia and Angela were sitting, not talking to each other, but having a discussion nonetheless. Gertrude picked up on it as she drew nearer.

_ I will miss her.  _ Gertrude heard Angela say. They hadn’t woken up since falling asleep when Weber had attacked them, and while they didn’t know the plan for Goldia, they knew she didn’t plan on staying much longer with her and her brother.

_ I’m sure we’ll see her again. She won’t forget us; she’s almost a grown woman.  _ Mia consoled Angela.

“More grown up than Mia’s been, until today.” Gertrude said, startling them both. Quickly, she continued. “Attacking a man as imposing as him with someone like Angela at your side is no small test of courage.”

Angela and Mia both looked at her with a look that said they had wanted to thank her and shower her with praise now that she had recovered, but that she was making it hard. After Weber had left, Gertrude had passed out and they’d cared for her and put her to bed in Mia’s large house. But they knew Gertrude didn’t take long to heal from anything, especially anything inflicted by that doctor, so the speed of her recovery wasn’t what had caught them off guard; it was the rudeness she still harbored, especially for Angela. Angela had many different flavors of the same emotion, a hurt feeling. Right now, she was wearing the one that said Gertrude had re-opened a wound she and Mia had just closed between each other.

But what Gertrude felt from Mia was much more impressive: A new firmness, reproval. And she was more than happy with what she heard when Mia opened her mouth. Which isn’t to say she agreed with it; she was just proud of Mia.

“Gertrude, that’s enough! How dare you attack Angela? She was only trying to help too, and besides, we’ve worked it out already. You don’t need to bring it up with her anymore, and if you-”

“You worked it out without me, so it’s hardly fair to say ‘WE worked it out’.”

Mia was momentarily confused by the conflicting messages of indignance and respect for her Gertrude was giving off. “Well… that’s….”

“I’m sorry, Gertrude.” Angela whispered quietly. “I ignored everything and ran, I almost got you killed. I almost got us all killed.”

Gertrude’s opinion of Angela was more than completely restored. She didn’t see any need to continue with the discussion. They’d both already shown that there was no reason to continue. Mia had grown up. She would never leave Gertrude alone again.

Gertrude bent down and hugged them both. Mia and Angela felt just what she was feeling, and they slept the rest of the night peacefully, harmoniously, just as Goldia did.

And in the morning, Mia would join Thomas in seeing Goldia and Fritz off as the two headed out of the city to Keifurberg, already planning to convince Thomas to let her visit them as soon as possible. There was no way Mia was waiting that long to see that special girl with a name bathed in gold. Mia’s single chance at happiness, she realized as Goldia disappeared from view.

 

In late afternoon, Goldia and Fritz arrived in Keifurberg. Fritz went to thank Abalard for taking care of his home and field while he was gone, taking Goldia with him to the Schmidt house. As Fritz was catching up with Abalard, she spotted Charlotte through the window with relief. The little girl was sitting quietly on the ground outside the house, facing the woods. Goldia excused herself and left the house to talk to her. As she approached, she had one of those rare waking separate personality moments and heard Enjel.

_ Please, let me talk to her. _

Goldia gave a mental nod.

“Hello again, Charlotte.” the Heir to Die Heilige greeted. Charlotte jolted to her feet and turned around.

“H-hi, Goldia.” she stammered.

“I’m glad to see you’re home, safe and sound.”

Charlotte quietly mumbled something, looking at her feet.

“What?”

“Thanks.” Charlotte repeated herself, then looked up in surprise, catching herself too late. “Wait, how did you know I…” she trailed off nervously as she was given a warm smile.

“You remember why you were brought to the city, right?”

Charlotte nodded. She’d been used to transport Enjel to the city so she could attack Goldia. Enjel must have told Goldia about Charlotte. But then Charlotte looked concerned.

“What happened to you?! Did she get a hold of your senses too?”

“No, she got a hold of mine.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Enjel?”

“Yes. But my name is Goldia.”

“But-“

“Let me explain. It’s a long story. And before I begin,” Goldia’s hands clasped Charlotte’s, “I’m so sorry for everything I did to you before I found myself.”

Charlotte’s hands were shaking slightly, from a confused mix of fear, curiosity and trust. Curiosity and trust won out, and she returned Enjel’s gesture with a hesitant nod. “Well, alright…”

_ Thank you, Goldia. _

_ You’re welcome, Enjel. _

Even Fleta wasn’t as excited as Enjel to truly make this friend.

Lisette was quietly proud, in her characteristically reserved way.

And while Harpae shared their excitement, they did not share her dread. She feared she would never be able to see their relationship. The memory had been extremely faded to begin with, and her senses were always only accustomed to the darkness and silence they’d been set to when the event had happened. But she could put that aside for now. It was time to talk with Charlotte.

 

Epilogue

 

The summer night was, like any other German summer night, warm, calm and pregnantly silent in the village under its dim domain. The silence was composed of background noises that disappear from one’s hearing if they remain long enough, such as the typical crickets or occasional hooting of owls outside the house, outside the bedroom of a young girl, outside her mind.

But what was this silence pregnant with?

A child of noise? A child of something about to be revealed?

 

A girl, young and fair, with flowing strawberry blonde hair reaching to below her waist, and an elegant outfit of white and blue, moved like someone who was nervous but trying not to show it, and worried by how nervous they were. She walked between the candles of her room, heading for her dresser, her near non-existent eyesight failing to indicate the increasing blackness of the flames. Her own footsteps were on the very edge of her hearing, and she stretched out her hands in front of her to avoid colliding with something.

As she neared the dresser, or was almost certain she was nearing it, she contemplated why she was so nervous, why she’d been so hesitant to do this before now. Ever since she had first lost her sight, she had tried to forget almost everything that had happened when she could see. Everything but her beloved. But while the mind is fairly quick to forget decent recollections, it proves very uncooperative with horrid ones like those she’d tried to eliminate in the first place, and so she had only succeeded in muddying the memories, both good and bad. She had done almost the same thing to her hearing, but to a comparatively much lower extent. And now, although she desperately wanted to be able to see and hear Goldia Die Heilige’s future, her unclear and intimidating past experiences with what her senses had told her was holding her back. If she didn’t do what she was about to do, hers would be a black and silent world for the rest of Goldia’s life. She couldn’t continue to see through the fading and much more limited memories of her sight and hearing the others still had. Remembering when you could see only works for as long as the memory remains fresh, and she hadn’t seen in a long time. Sure, she could use their hosts of more recent ones when she could hear but couldn’t see, but that would only reinforce her blindness. What the Maiden of Pristine Eyes needed now was herself. She needed to open her own eyes and ears, in such a way that she would never even consider disabling herself again. And in the dresser was the item she would use to do it.

Feeling it out to assure where it was, she seated herself in the comfy wooden chair facing the dresser and its three mirrors, with several drawers. Reaching out and opening the centermost drawer, she reached her other hand inside until she felt the precious regalia in her hand, the fine gold texture of the handle and the soft, luxurious touch of the brush’s bristles. She slowly lifted Haarburstes des Mondes from its resting place and placed it in her lap, knowing what to do but delaying it a little longer.

She knew Goldia was watching, all of her. Somewhere, anywhere nearby. She was at least listening. But she wasn’t going to interrupt Harpae under any circumstances. She wasn’t going to stop Harpae or encourage her. This made Harpae feel both confident and scared. Her charge knew she could do it, but did she herself think so?

Harpae decided she did.

Lifting her gaze and looking in the mirror before her’s direction, she raised the hairbrush to her head, and, gently, began to brush.

The effect was not immediate. It never was. A brush is a slow, elegant tool, not a sharp, snapping one like a pair of scissors or a scythe, or even a bell. And its abilities of amplifying its owner’s desires on the person whose hair it is blessing with its touch would take patience to manifest in the Maiden of Pristine Eyes. As the bristles gently ran through her hair, she did not focus on any memories of hers, nor of Fleta’s, nor of Lisette’s or Enjel’s. She focused on one, and only one, of Goldia herself’s recollections.

It was a memory from not long ago. Harpae had been brushing Goldia’s beautiful brown hair, and talking with her as she worked. Harpae needed Goldia’s memory of sight and hearing, but only as a starting point. The rest was up to her. And her resolve was quickly strengthening.

_ There’s nothing to fear about seeing or hearing. _

_ There’s only to fear about silence and darkness. _

And with the brush, her regalia, her Haarburstes des Mondes, she could do it.

Several minutes passed, and by that point, Harpae could no longer hear the gentle sound of her hair as she combed it, nor see the faintest light being reflected on the mirror before her, and the dimness of the now completely black candles was not helping.

But this would not stop Harpae. Nothing would stop her from achieving her single chance at happiness. And achieve it she did. As if she were slowly opening her eyes, and as if her ears had gradually began to awaken, she knew it was happening. But she contained her excitement, for she needed to focus. For what seemed hours, she tidied her hair, cherishing the sound of the brush running through her locks growing louder and louder and the glow of the candles shifting from black to gold, and from gold to blue.

She knew she had done it when clear, sharp blue eyes were looking back at her in glass that was once again well lit by the surrounding candles. She knew she had done it when the drawer made a satisfying sliding sound as it was opened, the precious brush was laid to rest gently inside, and closed. The silence had given birth to sound, gentle and reassuring. It had revealed everything around it’s patient subject as she truly opened her eyes for the first time in as long as she could remember. As she stood, she found herself facing the rest of Goldia, each of them smiling and enjoying Harpae’s ability to experience true eye contact with her. As Harpae’s eyes welled up, and she looked at them one by one, she realized one most important thing that all of Goldia had in common.

Goldia had completed the most important journey of them all, saving each of them from themselves and bringing herself back to the real world in the first place.

Fleta had grown up, the loss of her mother’s presence and the severe damage she and her world had suffered to Goldia’s carelessness only bolstering her.

Lisette had been tried and tested, saving all of them again and again even though none of them but Goldia had ever saved her.

Enjel, who had lost her way once, had lost it again. But just as she had found it once, she had found it again, more meaningfully and permanently than ever.

And Harpae, flawed but sincere, afraid but brave, had finally overcome the setbacks she had inflicted on herself.

And despite the great variance of each of Goldia’s personalities, they had each achieved what Goldia as a person, and as a soul, ultimately represented.

 

**_A single chance at happiness._ **

  
  


The End


End file.
